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When we have companies that have re- engineered [their products and equipment] and we see these kinds of results - that's what the Seal of Approval is all about.
Dalton, GA (PRWEB) February 15, 2010
The Carpet and Rug Institute has expanded its Seal of Approval testing and certification program by adding two new testing categories and expanding the existing extractors and deep-cleaning systems testing programs. Introductions to the program include a new Pet Odor and Stain Category, a Platinum Level for Extractors and Systems, and an Energy Efficiency Rating Option for Vacuums.
Pet Odor and Stain Testing
A new pet odor and stain category has been added to the Seal of Approval Solutions program, joining the existing spot remover, pre-spray and in-tank solutions testing categories. The new protocol will test products marketed specifically for pet stain and odor removal on their ability to remove tracked-in dirt, urine, feces, and vomit stains and related odors.
As with the other SOA Solutions testing platforms, water is the benchmark against which products are tested. For malodors, trained personnel test multiple samples of each pet stain and odor product, using a program developed by General Motors to test the odors of various components in automobile interiors. On a scale of one to ten, where ten is odorless and one is "intolerable" odor, Asbury says a product must score "three levels better than plain water" in order to pass the testing. And, because the powerful scent agents in cat urine tend to grow stronger with the passage of time, odor testing is performed at 72 hours after initial cleaning. For the staining component of the testing, products must perform equal to or better than plain water, without causing change in the carpet's color or encouraging accelerated resoiling.
"There is extreme demand in the marketplace for these kinds of products," said CRI President Werner Braun. "Having three pets of my own at home, I appreciate the value of a product that works."
Platinum Level for SOA Systems and Extractors
Another enhancement to the Seal of Approval program is the addition of the Platinum Level of performance for the Extractors and Deep-Cleaning Systems programs. The Platinum level is reserved for the equipment or equipment plus cleaning solution combinations that remove ninety percent or more of available soil. Carey Mitchell, chairman of CRI's Cleaning and Maintenance Issues Management Team and Director of Technical Services for Shaw Industries, said the platinum level was added to recognize superlative performance. "The Seal of Approval program encourages improvement," Mitchell said. "When we have companies that have re- engineered [their products and equipment] and we see these kinds of results - that's what the Seal of Approval is all about."
Systems that have achieved SOA Platinum levels include: Chem-Dry® PowerBase® 10 or PowerBase® 5 with PowerHead®; Chem-Drys Revolutionary Truck mounted system CTS-330 with PowerHead®; Dustbane 1000 XT; Mighty Pack by Rug Doctor; Stanley Steemer Truck Mounted Model 5450 with Wand; Stanley Steemers Truck Mounted Model 5200-5400-5500-5600 with Wand; TCS Warrior 18; Unisource FastBreak 10; Unisource FastBreak 20; Unisource FastBreak 8; Commodore 20 and Priza from Windsor Industries; Windsor Cadet CDT7; Windsor Clipper CLP12, and ZeroRez® Cleaning System.
Energy Efficiency Rating for Vacuums
The Energy Efficiency Rating for Vacuums option for the SOA Vacuum testing program came about in response to a major retailers interest in labeling its vendors vacuums according to their energy efficiency. The new energy testing evaluates a vacuums energy use in relation to its cleaning effectiveness, and can be performed as an optional test or as part of the regular Seal of Approval vacuum testing. Professional Testings Asbury noted that, for large commercial operations like hotel chains, office complexes and conference centers, switching from low-efficiency to high-efficiency vacuums would significantly lower energy consumption per each vacuum used, resulting in substantial cost savings over the course of a year. CRI President Braun says he expects testing under the new energy program will begin in the very near future, possibly in the next two to three weeks.
About The Carpet and Rug Institute
The CRI is the leading industry source for science- based information and insight on how carpet and rugs create a better environment-for living, working, learning and healing. The Institute's mission is to serve the carpet industry and public by providing facts that help people make informed choices. Its best practices promote a balance between social, economic and environmental responsibility for the long term. CRI does this for its industry, yet it strives to be a model corporate citizen for all industries. Visit http://www.carpet-rug.org for more information.


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Pittsburgh-Days Inn Monroeville2727 Mosside Blvd., Monroeville, PA� 15146, USPhone: 412-856-1610 * Fax: 412-856-1628 * E-mail: email@example.com
Conveniently located off Pennsylvania Turnpike & I-376. Days Inn Monroeville is definitely the 'Best Kept Secret' in the Eastern suburban area. Whether you are considering a shopping spree, sporting event, a cultrually enriched afternoon, or simply a night on the town, our spacious, comfortable rooms and friendly, service-oriented staff are waiting to guarantee that a visit away from home will be as relaxing as possible.
The business traveler will find that we are quite accomodating to their needs with our fax and copier services. Other amenities available to our guests include:
We take great pride in the quality of our guest rooms and welcome the opportunity to prove that comfort and convenience can be affordable.
SuperShuttle Pittsburgh (PIT) Airport Shuttle Service, Pittsburgh, PA
Check In: 03:00 PM Check Out: 11:00 AM

subset: commoncrawl


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Apple, Microsoft, and others, a little over a month ago in a letter to the EU, warning that the EU's new proposed unified patent law could lead to more patent trolling:
To mitigate the potential for abuses of such power, courts should be guided by principles set forth in the rules of procedure to assess proportionality prior to granting injunctions. And PAEs should not be allowed to use injunctions for the sole purpose of extracting excessive royalties from operating companies that fear business disruption.
A new front opened today in the patent wars between large technology companies, as a consortium that owns thousands of patents from the Nortel bankruptcy auction filed suit against Google and other manufacturers alleging infringement. Rockstar, which is owned jointly by Apple, Blackberry, Ericsson, Microsoft, and Sony, filed suit in US District Court in Texas. In addition to Google, the consortium has alleged infringement by Asus, HTC, Huawei, LG, Pantech, Samsung, and ZTE.
They're not just scumbags - they are lying scumbags.
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It amazes me how people still don't fully grasp the concept of SEPs.
It probably explains why the blind eye os turned to Google's actions. If people stopped to think the destructive effect of undermining commitments made to standards bodies they'd be more alarmed.
Suing over SEPs is going thermonuclear in patent warfare.
Your red herring about frand patents is falling on deaf ears and rightfully so. You see. MS and Apple decided to attack Google and its partners with frivilous dubious software patents. All Google is trying to do is defend themselves with the frand patents.
Microsoft and Apple are smart enough to NOT make their standards open, but make them defacto standards using their OS dupoly (for example, try formating a USB stick in anything else than FAT32 or exFAT in Windows without downloading third-party tools).
Defacto standard = no obligation to FRAND the patents = potential to gouge anyone who implements said standard to interface with your OS.
Want more? Microsoft exchange, WMV, iTunes/UnFairPlay, Quicktime.... the list goes on.
PS: Anyone knows those "anti patent troll" acts are intended to screw small investors who can't bring their inventions to the public. Are you big enough to make products? Patent troll at will. Essentialy the big companies want to have the whole patent trolling business their own, not eliminate it. (what did you expect, really?)
Edited 2013-11-03 12:09 UTC


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Russian cosmonauts take six-hour stroll in space
To do list: Space station housekeeping, search for aliens
Vid Two cosmonauts successfully completed a six-hour spacewalk around the International Space Station (ISS), captured on their helmet cams, at 22.46 GMT last night.
Flight Engineers Oleg Kononenko and Anton Shkaplerov were busy with a number of housekeeping tasks, including moving the Strela-1 crane from the Pirs docking compartment to get Pirs ready for replacement next year with a new lab and docking module.
The Russians used Strela-2, a telescoping boom which is a bit like a fishing rod, to grab the crane and move it to the Poisk module.
The 'nauts also installed the Vinoslivost Materials Sample Experiment, which will examine the influence of space on the mechanical properties of the materials inside.
And while they were out there, they grabbed a test sample from under the insulation on the Zvezda service module, to see if there was any sign of living organisms in it. The pair were also supposed to install five debris shields on Zvezda, but they ran out of time.
This was the third spacewalk for Kononenko and the first for Shkaplerov and it's the only one scheduled during this expedition. ®


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Christine Thalwitz is director of communications and research at ACAC Fitness & Wellness Centers. She is an active presenter, continuing education provider and writer for industry publications. Having worked in a club setting for nearly 20 years, Thalwitz has found that walking in the members' shoes is one of the best ways to take steps towards improving retention. She can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Times are tough. Will your clients let go of their gym memberships or stop personal training to save money? Some might be tempted, especially if they are not seeing returns on their investment. However, if you add emotional value to your members' club experience, you could safeguard your business.
At first glance, this suggestion may seem vague or incalculable, but you can take concrete, measurable steps to add emotional value to your members' experience.
1. Interact with your members. It's you that the customers want. What clients appreciate most is your hospitality and expertise. The best part is that adding value by enhancing service is simple, and it doesn't cost anything extra.
A colleague of mine shared some incredible retention statistics that she heard in an educational session by Paul Bedford of the Leisure Database Co., an expert in member retention and attrition management.
Bedford cites that if members are spoken to (in a meaningfulway) every time they come to the club, they are much more likely to continue their membership and refer new members. If members are only interacted with occasionally, the likelihood that they will remain members after six months drops by 60 percent. If they are spoken to rarely or never, the probability that they will still be members after six months drops by 70 percent.
Bedford goes on to correlate member retention to the number of times a team member interacts with a member in any given month:
• One interaction: The member is 20 percent more likely to come back again.
• Two to three interactions: The member is 50 percent more likely to return.
• Four or more interactions: The member is 80 percent more likely to continue at the club.
It just goes to show the value of a personal connection. Simple actions, such as smiling and introducing ourselves to members we don't know, looking for guests who need help and calling members by name, help build relationships that our clients will be less likely to abandon.
2. Facilitate strong member-to-member connections. Member-to-member interactions build a network of social support and create a sense of belonging.
We know that club members who participate in group activities, such as group exercise, basketball leagues or tennis, have higher retention rates than individuals who experience the club in a solitary fashion. John McCarthy, IHRSA's executive director emeritus, makes a distinction between "group fitness" and "machine" members. He explains that "machine" members often interact only with the machines they use and are, therefore, "deficient in both member-to-member connections and member-to-staff connections." They are not as loyal to a club because they see it merely as a fitness warehouse.
To draw members into group activities, have membership coordinators gather data about member interests at the point of sale. In addition to directing new members to group activities they will enjoy, this information can be used for program invitations at a later date. Encourage program leaders and department heads to contact new members personally to welcome them to the club and answer any questions they have about classes or programs.
Creating social space in your club also can promote member-to-member interaction. Clubs with cafés, lounges or other places where members can chat or meet for a cup of coffee tend to have higher retention rates than clubs without social space. Consider adding seating in places that members typically wait or congregate, such as outside the locker rooms and group exercise studios.
3. Factor in the fun. At Club Industry's recent conference in Chicago, aerobics icon Richard Simmons was a featured keynote speaker. As you can imagine, he did not stand at a podium and lecture for 45 minutes. He interacted with audience members, bringing almost half the room onstage with him at one point or another. Simmons made the experience fun and non-threatening, turning what could have been a one-way lecture into a dynamic shared experience.
Similarly, strive to surprise and delight your members and guests every day. Map out their experience at your gym to find service opportunities. Grab an umbrella on a rainy day and offer to walk members to their cars. Wash dirty clothes left behind in the locker rooms so that when they are claimed from lost and found they are folded and fresh. Handwrite personal notes of thanks or encouragement. Generate excitement in your club and around town with group exercise launch parties, fitness "flash mobs" and "tweetups."
The winning formula is very simple, and Simmons' philosophy sums it up nicely. In addition to providing the fun factor, he advises clubs to "know no strangers" and make members feel "like a million dollars." More often than not, it is the small, personal touches that create a standout experience. When members look forward to spending time at your club, they will make their workouts a priority. And regular attendance is the best way for members to be successful in your clubs, both in building relationships and reaching their fitness goals. The bottom line is that successful members are loyal members.


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Greenwood Lake — The Greenwood Lake school board could decide during a meeting Tuesday evening whether or not to add Tuxedo to the list of options for its high school students.
Greenwood Lake — The Greenwood Lake school board could decide during a meeting Tuesday evening whether or not to add Tuxedo to the list of options for its high school students.
Tuxedo's school board decided last month to lower its proposed tuition rate by another $500, to $12,500. The move was intended to convince the Greenwood Lake school board to reconsider the phaseout of its students from Tuxedo's George F. Baker High over four years.
The change by Tuxedo, which initially offered an annual tuition rate of $13,900, came shortly after a Greenwood Lake decision to offer a parental choice option rather than renew its contract with Tuxedo, where its students have gone to high school for the past 30 years.
Starting next school year, Greenwood Lakers will have to choose between high schools in Chester and Warwick, which offer tuitions of $9,500 and $8,000, respectively.
The decision, however, has stoked emotions from Greenwood Lake families who support their high school, and fear for its potential closure.
Greenwood Lake students make up 80 percent of the student body at the Tuxedo high school, raising questions about its long-term viability without them.
A Sept. 19 rally drew 400 to 500 people; more than 600 signatures were collected in support of putting Baker on the list of options.
Proponents of staying at the high school say it offers a more intimate and better-quality education than in Chester or Warwick. They contend the decision to drop Tuxedo resulted more from political considerations than budgetary concerns.
Indeed, the Greenwood Lake school board initially voted to stay with Tuxedo rather than go elsewhere.
That decision was reversed after the majority makeup of the board changed and the community clamored for cheaper options.
Greenwood Lake officials have said adding Tuxedo to the mix is irreconcilable with saving money as revenue grows thinner under a state-mandated 2 percent tax cap.
Opponents of staying with Tuxedo said the organizers of the campaign to save Baker are manipulating people's sentiment for the high school to achieve their own ends.
The board meeting Tuesday begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Greenwood Lake Elementary School on Elm Street.


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Drummers! Make A Social Network for Free with Roland's V-Drums Friend Jam
Drummers! Make A Social Network for Free with Roland's V-Drums Friend Jam
Have fun practicing drums with friends from all around the world!
Roland have introduced a social tool for drummers with their "V-Drums Friend Jam" free download for owners of their V-Drum electric drum kit series; TD-20X, TD-20, TD-12, TD-9, TD-4 and HD-1.
"V-DrumsFriend Jam" is a social networking tool for users of Roland's V-Drum Electric Drum Kits, which allows you to connect to the internet whilst playing V-Drums and see other drummers from around the world. V-Drums Friend Jam is a free download for your Mac or PC - get your hands on over 33 special practice songs in 7 different genres including rock, pop, metal, jazz and dance or add your own favourite songs from your Mac or PC to the "My Music" folder.
Compete with your virtual friends and show off with your record breaking results with the VDR Circle Twitter profile where you can Tweet your score!
Our Favourite Features
Display During Play
The V-Drums that you're playing is shown on your screen, each time you hit a pad it will light up in orange, a bit like the theme from Rock Band and Guitar Heros.
Show off your talent with the world rankings function, which you can Tweet on Twitter to tell the world how good you really are!
Record Your Results
Want to know which you are best at? You can check the results of your performances for beat, stamina and technique so you can see where you may need to improve to reach that #1 spot.
Own a V-Drum kit? See if yours is compatible and download V-Drum Friend Jam for free.


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Childhood is the best time to learn the healthy habits that can last a lifetime.
Healthy eating can help your child feel good, stay at a normal weight, and have lots of energy for school and play. In fact, healthy eating can help your whole family live better.
Healthy eating means eating lots of:
It also means limiting:
Healthy eating doesn't mean that your child has to give up all desserts and treats. Those types of foods can be okay now and then. Just remember that moderation is the goal.
Is it okay for children to be vegetarians?
Vegetarian diets can be healthy for children and teens. A strict vegetarian diet (vegan) that does not include meat, poultry, fish, dairy, or eggs might require some planning to be sure your child is getting enough calories, vitamins, and minerals. Young vegan children tend to be slightly smaller but still within normal ranges for growth. And they tend to catch up to other children in size as they get older. Parents can get help from a registered dietitian who is experienced in vegan diets.
A vegetarian diet that includes milk products and eggs can be a healthy way to eat for children and teens. In fact, it can be a great way to get them into a lifelong habit of healthy eating.
If your teen decides to become a vegetarian, teach him or her how to plan meals to get all the right nutrients every day. Teens need calcium and vitamin D. And iron is especially important for teen girls who are menstruating. Talk with your doctor about how much of these vitamins and minerals your child needs. Ask if your teen needs to take a daily supplement.
A vegetarian diet is not healthy for my growing child.
Teaching and modelling healthy eating habits is crucial in this age of high-fat fast foods, ever-present soda pop machines, and increasing numbers of obese and overweight children.
Children who weigh too much may end up with serious health problems, including:
Healthy eating can help your child stay at a normal weight, grow, and have lots of energy for school and play. It's one of the most important habits you can teach your child to give him or her a healthy life.
Of course, these habits are not just good for children. They're good for the whole family.
Healthy eating is one of the most important habits I can teach my children.
Share the responsibility. You decide when, where, and what the family eats. Your child chooses whether and how much to eat from the options you provide.
Young children are good at listening to their bodies. They eat when they're hungry. They stop when they're full. When we try to control how much children eat, we interfere with this natural ability. Keeping this division of responsibility helps your child stay in touch with those internal cues.
Help your children learn to eat slowly and recognize when they are full. Don't let rules, pleading, or bargaining dictate your child's eating patterns.
You can use some or all of the ideas below to get started. You may find other ideas that work for your family, and you can add those to these lists.
Help your children understand healthy eating by teaching them about food—where it comes from, how it grows, what nutrients it contains, and how many calories it has.
It's important to give my child complete freedom when it comes to when, where, and how much to eat.
Actually, healthy eating is a shared responsibility. You decide when, where, and what the family eats. Your child chooses whether and how much to eat from the options you provide.
Yes, healthy eating is a shared responsibility. You decide when, where, and what the family eats. Your child chooses whether and how much to eat from the options you provide.
Now that you have read this information, you are ready to help your child learn healthy eating habits.
Talk with your doctor
If you have questions about this information, print it out and take it with you when you visit your doctor. You may want to use a highlighter to mark areas or make notes in the margins of the pages where you have questions.
Return to topic:
Last Revised: March 29, 2012
This information does not replace the advice of a doctor. Healthwise, Incorporated disclaims any warranty or liability for your use of this information.


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Many babies also get
rashes or have
birthmarks. In this article, seven kinds of rashes and birthmarks are discussed.
These birthmarks can vary considerably in size but are all flat areas of skin that contain extra pigment, which causes them to appear brown, gray, or even blue (like a bruise). Most often located on the back or buttocks, Mongolian spots are very common, especially in dark- skinned babies. They usually disappear before school age and are of no medical significance.
Small blisters that typically appear at birth, they peel open and dry up within a couple of days. They leave dark spots like freckles that usually disappear over several weeks. Some newborns may have only the spots, indicating that they had the rash before birth. While pustular melanosis is common (particularly in babies with darker skin) and is a harmless newborn rash, it is always important to have all blister like rashes evaluated by your baby's doctor to make sure they aren't due to an infection.
These tiny white bumps or yellow spots are found on the cheeks, chin, or across the tip of the nose, and are caused by skin-gland secretion. This common newborn rash generally disappears on its own within the first two to three weeks of life.
Often referred to as a "heat rash" or "prickly heat," miliaria most often occurs in hot, humid climates or when babies are over-bundled. The rash can contain tiny sweat blisters and/or small red bumps. It shows up most often in skin folds and covered areas, and usually goes away within a few days.
Often called "E tox" for short, this rash is very common and usually appears within the first few days after birth. It consists of multiple red splotches with yellowish-white bumps in the center, and goes away within a week or so. It generally resolves if it's left completely alone.
These raised red spots are caused by a strawberry-like collection of blood vessels in the skin. For the first week or so, they may appear white or pale, then turn red later. While they often enlarge during the first year, most shrink and almost disappear by the time a child reaches school age usually without requiring treatment.
Large, flat, and irregularly shaped dark red or purple areas. Caused by extra blood vessels under the skin, port wine stains are usually located on the face or neck but, unlike hemangiomas, don't disappear without treatment. These birthmarks can be treated, sometimes with laser surgery by either a
plastic surgeon or a
pediatric dermatologist.
If your baby was born vaginally, in addition to the elongated shape of his head, there also may be some scalp swelling in the area that was pushed out first during birth. If you press gently on this area, your finger may even leave a small indentation. This swelling (called caput) is not serious and should disappear in a few days.


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University adds Fusion ioMemory solutions to eliminate database performance issues and related support tickets, improve productivity, and simplify infrastructure.
The Challenge
A leading online university hosts an intranet that employees access to do most of their work. Consequently, if performance drops, so does productivity. When its intranet databases began to slow, it tasked its lead systems engineer with finding a solution.
The university's initial intranet infrastructure consisted of four MySQL database servers that supported three application servers. These application servers hosted multiple productivity applications. As the system team began investigating application and database slowness, it became evident right away that disk latency was the primary performance problem.
The Solution
The lead systems engineer had been watching SanDisk for years and was confident its Fusion ioMemory ioDrive® cards could solve the university's problems. After evaluating several options, he and his team agreed that SanDisk was the best solution to resolve the university's disk latency issues.
Running the Benchmarks
The university ran benchmark tests comparing eight 15K RPM SAS drives configured in a RAID 10 to one ioDrive® Duo card with its two DIMMs striped in a RAID 0.
This table shows the benchmark results, reported in megabinary bits (MiB) of 1024k (higher is better).
|8 x 15k Disk Array
|ioDrive Duo
|Random Reads
|Random Writes
|Random Reads
|Random Writes
Improving Queries
The week before it deployed the ioDrive cards into production, the database team had run a long query that took 2 1/2 hours to complete. On a whim, the engineers asked a DBA to run the same query again on the ioDrive system. They then left for an hour-long meeting, hoping the query would be done by the time the meeting ended. Five minutes later, before the meeting even started, the DBA called saying, "It's done. What's the next test?"
"Since implementing the ioDrive cards, query performance has ceased to be a problem. Our DBAs still tune queries, of course. But from a system engineer's standpoint, I no longer have any reason to ask them to." said the lead engineer.
Speeding Replication
In the previous system, the replication lag between the master and read servers often resulted in stale data. To end users, it could appear as if updates hadn't occurred, resulting in support tickets that were "magically" fixed by the time the support team investigated and replication had caught up. The ioDrive system replicated the largest transactions in mere seconds instead of minutes, completely eliminating this problem.
Eliminating Performance Complaints
The university deployed the SanDisk powered system over the holidays, immediately putting the ioDrive cards' scalability to the test, as January is the university's busiest time of the year. Typically, this spike in activity severely taxed the system and presented support a corresponding increase in performance-related complaints. However, the SanDisk powered system handled the spikes without any noticeable impact on performance.
For once, support wasn't fielding performance tickets, and employees were able to focus on doing their work instead of waiting on applications.
"Since deploying the ioDrive cards, our support team hasn't received a single support ticket related to the intranet application and database performance," the lead engineer told us. "That, to me, is the most important benchmark of all."
Lead Systems Engineer
Online University
A Simple and Elegant Architecture
With recommendations from SanDisk's expert field engineers, the university's system team devised an architecture that eliminated key I/O and CPU bottlenecks, while actually simplifying its system.
The new database layer replaced the four database servers with just two new Hewlett-Packard DL380 servers, each equipped with a 640GB ioDrive card.
Initially, the lack of infrastructure caused some concern about reliability, as management had come to equate adding hardware with reliability. However, the lead engineer pointed out several strengths of the SanDisk powered system. First, the ioDrive cards didn't have the additional data hand-offs between controllers, RAM caches, and between the host and storage media, each of which could compromise integrity. Second, the new system had a much simpler outage scenario now that it consisted of two servers instead of four. If the master server failed, the SanDisk system's replication allowed the read server to change to a fully functioning master much faster, reducing the risk of data loss. Like the previous system, the new master server maintained a read pool that allowed it to serve as both master and read if the read server failed, without disruption in service.
In addition to the advantages ioDrive cards had over the previous system, the engineer noted the data integrity advantages inherent in ioDrive cards. He told us, "With the Fusion ioMemory product, I know my data is protected. The capacitors on the SanDisk cards will never die, and I'll never have to perform maintenance."
Thus, with half the servers, the system team got both a more powerful database layer and a more reliable one.
Enabling Efficient Asset Use
The ioDrive cards' performance eliminated I/O bottlenecks in the university's database. However, this newfound performance exposed another bottleneck – the university's applications were CPU-bound. But this ended up being a non-issue since the ioDrive card purchase had freed up four servers, the systems team was able to repurpose these as application servers to redistribute the CPU load and further improve application performance.
ROI on Steroids
One of the most compelling aspects of the SanDisk solution was its return on investment (ROI).
Evaluating Competing Solutions
While making its purchase decision, the systems team evaluated several solutions against a 100,000 IOPS performance threshold.
The team ruled out SANs almost immediately since, as the lead engineer put it, "It would have taken hundreds of disks to equal the performance of just one ioDrive card."
The lead engineer told us, "There wasn't enough space in a single server to get 100,000 IOPS and by the time we aggregated everything, the Fusion ioMemory solution came out cheaper. Additionally, we would have had to purchase multiple RAID controllers with failure groups and a hot spare. The complexity and expense of other options made SanDisk a no-brainer."
Competing PCI Express SSDs were also ruled out for two reasons. First, as described above, the reliability issues created a concern. Second, these solutions cost much more for equivalent performance.
MySQL 5.x on Mac Xserve Cluster
Changes to the System
Implementing the Fusion ioMemory solution gave the university the following benefits:
The lead engineer told us, "Our team is thrilled with the results and can't wait to use the ioDrive cards to consolidate other areas of our system."


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You may have noticed that there is a change in the appearance of downtown. After thirty five years City Hall is getting a face lift.
"You never get a second chance to make a good first impression"… That was one of the reasons Mayor Olive and the council took the initiative of having the City Hall refurbished. "This building is over thirty five years old and time had taken a toll on the structure and aesthetics of the building. Olive went on to say that "the City Hall is host to many guests; citizen, elected officials, and prospective business executives. It is our desire for the City Hall to be reflective of our tagline Spirit, Pride, and Progress. The greatest compliment that we can pay to the outstanding citizens of this community is to have a well maintained facility that meets the needs of this community. I trust that we all share the pride in the work that has been accomplished inside and outside of the building. Through the use of one-time grant funds, we have been able to stretch and maximize matching city funds to accomplish a great deal of improvements. Recently the City of Bastrop applied for and awarded capital outlay funds to replace the roof on City Hall and the driveway at Central Fire Station. In coordination with our Main Street program, we selected a modern color scheme that would be timeless yet still appropriate to the building. Pictured are members of the crew of Richard Gilmore, who grew up in Bastrop and was awarded the contract, they have done an outstanding job. He estimates the job will be completed in about another week. They are in the process of painting the accent colors and details such as caulking holes and cracks. A lot of prep work had to be done on the building since it had been so long since it had been painted. Olive also noted that plans are underway for a spring open house so all citizens will have the opportunity to see the upgrades that have been made.


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Irregular heartbeat treatment inadequate in US, study finds
A significant number of U.S. patients with irregular heart rhythms do not receive adequate therapy, according to a new study of treatment practices for atrial fibrillation.
"Many patients out there that aren't treated probably should be treated," said lead author Dr. Benjamin Steinberg, a fellow at Duke University Medical Center's Duke Clinical Research Institute.
Atrial fibrillation is the most common form of irregular heartbeat, affecting an estimated 2.7 million people in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention.
Symptoms include shortness of breath, fatigue, heart racing and chest pains. Because atrial fibrillation causes irregular blood flow, the disease can also lead to clots that increase the risk of stroke.
If the heartbeat is likened to a drum beat, doctors typically take care of either the quality of the rhythm or its tempo.
"In general, physicians are left to their own devices whether they think the patient will benefit by being put into normal rhythm as opposed simply treating the heart rate," Steinberg told Reuters Health.
Doctors also use blood thinners to reduce the longer-term risk of stroke.
Steinberg's team used a registry of 10,061 U.S. patients treated for atrial fibrillation between 2010 and 2011 and concluded that patients were being under-treated for heart rhythm and stroke.
Two out of three patients received therapies meant to help control their heart rate (6,859 patients or 68 percent). But just one in three patients received treatments meant to control their heart rhythm (3,202 patients or 32 percent).
The patients whose heart rate was controlled tended to be older and sicker, researchers found. Patients who received rhythm control tended to show more symptoms, though other patients might have benefited from the treatment, the researchers said.
The study was published in the American Heart Journal.
"This shows that we are probably underutilizing rhythm control," said Dr. Rod Passman, cardiology professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research.
Controlling a patient's heart rate is relatively simple and includes well-known drugs such as beta-blockers, but may not resolve the irregular heart beat in the long term.
However, controlling a heart's rhythm is trickier since it requires more sophisticated heart monitoring and drugs that can cause severe side effects.
"Rhythm control is very challenging," Passman told Reuters Health. "Many internists and cardiologists are scared of these (rhythm control) medications as well they maybe should be."
Even more troubling for experts: one in four atrial fibrillation patients did not receive blood thinners meant to lower the long-term risk of strokes caused by blood clots.
"This was sobering news; it shows us that in general that anti-coagulation is not being used as much as it should be," Passman said.
For decades, doctors used warfarin, a blood thinner that is affected by certain foods and requires close monitoring of patients. Over the last three years, new blood thinners entered the market that do not require as much monitoring.
Patients at risk for stroke may not receive blood thinners for a variety of reasons, experts said.
Atrial fibrillation can be transient, so patients may not show symptoms during a visit to the doctor's office, which is another potential reason why a doctor might not prescribe blood thinners, experts said.
In addition, frail patients at risk for falls, for example, may not receive blood thinners. Steinberg said in these cases, the risk of bleeding was significantly over-estimated whereas the risk of stroke was significant.
"Perhaps we as providers are over estimating bleeding risk in general and under estimating stroke risk," Steinberg said.


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Drives: 2009 Shelby GT500
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Location: Port Orange, FL
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not really, the one your thinking.
There's a word for any driver who thinks he's in charge when behind the wheel of the 2011 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 SLP: delusional.
This is not just a muscle car, it's a one-car biker gang hell on four wheels, packing a supercharged 750-horsepower 7.0-liter V8 and six forward gears. This thing is always traction-limited. Its massive rear tires turn to jelly at quarter-throttle. Even with the bolognas lit, it explodes from point to some other random point.
And you'd better be ready to grab some gears. Everything happens so quickly in the 2011 Chevy Camaro ZL1 it's impossible for your mind, your hands, your feet or your respiratory system to keep up. And it sounds like war.
We may have just found the perfect Camaro.
The $80,000 Heart Transplant
This is not the GM-made LSA-powered Camaro ZL1 that's due in 2012. Until December 31, 2011, SLP Performance of Toms River, New Jersey, has the rights to the ZL1 name and it's making the most of it.
The company, which has been souping up GM's pony cars since the early 1990s, charges $80,000 to convert a manual-transmission-equipped Camaro SS into a ZL1. Yeah, that's $80K plus the cost of a Camaro SS base price, $32,750. Assuming no discounts, that's $112,750 minimum. Not cheap. But practically no one ordering one of the 69 ZL1s SLP is building this year is likely to stay at the minimum.
That 69-unit production run commemorates, duh, the 69 ZL1 Camaros Chevrolet built during the 1969 model year. And like those cars, SLP's new ZL1 is powered by an all-aluminum 427-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) V8. This one isn't a Chevy big block, however, but an SLP-assembled variation on the LS7 that's installed in the track-ready Z06 version of the Corvette.
The ZL1 isn't just a bunch of stickers spread over a Camaro with a bolt-on supercharger.
To build the ZL1 engine, SLP stuffs the LS7 block with a forged chromoly crank, SLP-specific cam and hard-core forged rods and pistons. Then it caps everything with lower-compression LS3 heads running premium valvetrain elements. Throw in high-performance versions of ancillary components and the result is a voracious/insatiable/wicked/blistering engine.
The Z06's LS7 runs a thick 11.0:1 compression ratio and, without the help of forced induction, is SAE net-rated at 505 hp on premium-grade fuel. SLP's 7.0-liter only runs at 10.3:1 compression but is boosted by an Eaton TVS 2300 blower that company's latest variation on the classic Roots-style supercharger with four-lobed rotors on 160-degree twists. Heaving in 10 psi of boost and aided by SLP's "Blackwing" cold-air induction system, SLP fabricated headers and an SLP-built exhaust system, the company says it's good for 750 hp. There's reason to believe them.
Dyno Test
Inside Line had both a ZL1 coupe and convertible to test. Recently Engineering Editor Jason Kavanagh put the convertible on the chassis dyno at MD Automotive. Exactly why Jay is dressed like Che Guevara in this video is open to speculation.
Inside Line tests in California, and considering the 91-octane swill available here, that 617-hp performance at the wheels is mighty indeed. With the better fuel available in other parts of the country, 750 ponies at the flywheel before parasitic drivetrain losses is plausible.
Also consider the ZL1's near-flat torque curve that shows more than 550 pound-feet of twist down around 2,400 rpm, a 610 lb-ft peak at 4,200 rpm and production of more than 500 lb-ft even as the fuel cutoff hits at 6,300 rpm. If you want more low-end thrust than that, go rip off a GE90 turbofan from under the wing of a 777.
SLP hasn't certified the ZL1 for sale in the People's Republic of California, anyhow. If we won't feed it a high-protein diet, we don't deserve it.
Fortified to Excess
To put SLP's supercharged engine in an unfortified Camaro would be dangerous. To put it in a Camaro that's not redecorated to attract attention would be bad marketing.
The Tremec six-speed manual transmission (versions of which have been used in the Dodge Viper) is left pretty much alone and treated to an SLP short-throw shifter. A Corvette ZR1 clutch assembly and SLP flywheel make sure the power makes it to the transmission at all. In back, SLP-made heavy-duty half-shafts are fortified for extreme abuse.
And trust us, this car can take abuse.
While the basic geometry of the Camaro's suspension remains, SLP adjustable coil-over shocks and oversize anti-sway bars increase roll stiffness and bring the car down to the ground.
Brembo brakes are used all around 16-inch vented rotors up front clamped by six-piston calipers and 15-inchers in back with four pistons squeezing down. Outboard of those are 20-by-9-inch front and 20-by-10.5-inch rear SLP lightweight forged alloy wheels. The tires are Michelin Pilot Sport PS2s with 245/45R20s in front and 295/35R20s in back.
Dressed to Excess
Distinguishing SLP's ZL1 handiwork from mere Camaros are a special front fascia, a front splitter with a "carbon-fiber finish," a true carbon-fiber hood, a rear deck lid finished to look like it's carbon fiber, a rear spoiler that has the sneaky carbon-fiber finish, a blacked-out rear tail panel and a carbon-look rear diffuser.
Thankfully the ZL1 was painted low-key gray. A brighter color would have had it looking like a calliope heading a circus parade. As it is, however, it just looks hungry: ready to consume continents in big honking chomps.
Inside there's the expected embroidered floor mats and so many logos and dash plaques that SLP may have drained the world's supply of Zs, Ls and 1s dry. The best interior element, however, is the houndstooth cloth seat inserts that seem lifted straight out of a '69 Camaro. The rest of the seats may be covered in soft Katzkin leather, but it's the houndstooth that will attract attention.
High Drama
The ZL1's front splitter scrapes when it runs over gum wrappers and, as with other Camaro coupes, its outward visibility is lousy. But those are just inconveniences and anyone can live with some inconvenience. It's the momentous challenge of herding the ZL1's horses that's staggering.
Dip into the ZL1's throttle and you may as well just slam the pedal to the firewall. It's not that the throttle lacks progressivity, but that the engine sound is so intoxicating that the temptation to wood it is irresistible. And once you give in to the urge, you're hooked like a junkie.
Then there are the staccato rumbles, spits and barks the engine makes once the driver lets off the throttle. Even when cruising at 30 mph, lifting off the throttle to turn into a CVS parking lot, the ZL1 sounds as if it's pulling into the pits for a driver change at the 24 Hours of Daytona.
Real Speed
Launching the 2011 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 takes a very particular technique. The trick is finding the precise rate at which the throttle can be applied without overwhelming the rear tires. So after a clutch dump at 2,500 rpm, the driver needs to gently roll into the throttle maybe a quarter-inch per second. And even with that tenderness, the tires will still haze up and fry.
With the traction control off, the best 0-60-mph time achieved with the 3,900-pound ZL1 coupe was a disappointing 4.3 seconds (4.2 with 1 foot of rollout as on a drag strip). Some decent fuel and more work on the launch would drop that time down into the high 3-second range. A set of drag slicks could knock that to the low 3s. The 4,168-pound ZL1 convertible, using the identical launch technique, also did the 0-60 deed in 4.3 seconds.
Over the quarter-mile, the ZL1 coupe went through the traps in 12.1 seconds at 120.9 mph. The convertible did it in 12.2 seconds at 117.2 mph.
In comparison, the 3,366-pound, 638-hp 2010 Corvette ZR1 runs from zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds and blows through the quarter-mile in 11.7 seconds at 126.7 mph. Weighing 534 pounds less than the ZL1 and not spinning its much wider 335/25R20 rear tires all the way down the length of the track are, it turns out, advantages.
The heavy ZL1 coupe's 110-foot stopping distance is impressive, and its big Brembo discs are designed for fade resistance. This Camaro could perform back-to-back panic stops for a week without much deterioration in performance.
Excessively Sticky
Oversteer-on-demand is the only way we can describe the ZL1's handling. Its steering wheel isn't irrelevant, but it's close. It's not that the front tires don't bite, it's just that whatever happens up front is easily overwhelmed by applying power.
Brake into a corner and the ZL1's nose will push gently. A talented driver will recognize the moment the car has hit understeer, apply some throttle and let the car rotate around the front tires. The big challenge is not over-applying the throttle and spinning your $113,000 toy off the road backward. On fire.
If you have the touch, the ZL1 is otherworldly through the corners. If you don't have that touch, leave the traction control on and indulge in the sights and sounds that make the ZL1 such a high-drama spectacle.
On the skid pad the ZL1 orbited at 0.90g whether or not the traction control system was engaged. The PS2s have gentle breakaway at their limits, but it's not easy to sneak up on those limits with a car this powerful. The knife-edge balance between power and adhesion was even more of a challenge in the slalom, where the ZL1 swung through at 70.1 mph on one perfect run. The last stock Camaro SS we tested managed a 68.2-mph run.
Compared to a standard Camaro SS, the ZL1 coupe rides significantly stiffer, and the shocks seem to rebound more suddenly over bumps. It's not uncomfortable for the committed enthusiast, but his relatives may complain.
High Impact
SLP has always been more ambitious than most tuners. Back in the '90s its Pontiac Firebird-based Firehawk models featured shockingly powerful, specially assembled small-block V8s and aggressively tuned suspensions when many shops were trying to pawn off cat-back exhaust systems as "tuning." The ZL1 isn't just a bunch of stickers spread over a Camaro with a bolt-on supercharger.
But the best thing of all is that this car speaks to the primal instincts of automotive enthusiasm. You don't need to know anything about cars to know the moment you see, hear and feel the 2011 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 approaching that it's something special.
Yup, we may have just found the perfect Camaro.
2009 GT500 11.3 @124.7 (CAI/pulley/tune/xpipe) 560/558
Drives: 2011 IOM 2SS/RS M6
Join Date: Sep 2010
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As much as I love the camaro, you can make almost any car a street beast at $110k. But yes its still pretty awesome.
Drives: 11' SGM 2SS/13' GT/08' F-150 4x4
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^^ this
Drives: 2009 Shelby GT500
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Port Orange, FL
Posts: 203
you can get a used zr1 for 99K this seems a little over priced.
2009 GT500 11.3 @124.7 (CAI/pulley/tune/xpipe) 560/558
Drives: 2010 IOM 2SS/RS
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: NJ
Posts: 633
Someone needs to change the name of this thread to "SLP ZL1 TESTED!!!!!" I see a lot of misled and grumpy people in this thread's future . . .
Drives: 2011 RJT 2SS/RS M6
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"I'm a man who discovered the wheel, and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn! That's what kind of man I am." - Ron Burgundy
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Timbers aim for first win of season against Dynamo
Portland, OR – The Portland Timbers will go for their first win of the season on Saturday when the club engages in a tough interconference battle with the Houston Dynamo at JELD-WEN Field.
In the Timbers' last match, midfielder Will Johnson netted a second-half double as Portland battled back from a 2-0 deficit to salvage a point in a 2-2 draw with the Colorado Rapids at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.
Dillon Powers opened the scoring for Colorado 18 minutes in with a rocket into the top right corner from outside the box.
Just after halftime, Hendry Thomas converted a penalty kick to widen the advantage, but Johnson scored twice in the second half to ensure a point for his side.
"We've kind of been the comeback kids, Portland head coach Caleb Porter said of his team's resilience. "We don't want to be coming back as much as we have been. People will focus on the negatives, and obviously there are some negatives: we haven't won a game in four and we've given up the first goal in four games."
"I'm focused on the positives," Porter continued. "We've only lost one game. As much as we haven't won a game, four times we played a team, and we've only lost one game, and that's to the team at the top of the table. We're all competitors, we all want three points, it's just not happening as quickly as we want. For me, I'm going to focus on the positives, and how much progress we've made in the last two years, and how much progress we've made from last year. That's a 3-0 game last year."
Houston, meanwhile, is coming off a comfortable 2-0 win over the San Jose Earthquakes at BBVA Compass Stadium to extend their remarkable unbeaten streak on home soil to 34 consecutive matches.
Young striker Will Bruin broke the ice in the 17th minute and Giles Barnes added a second goal before the halftime whistle to all but put it away for Houston.
"I think it puts them under pressure and it rewards the guys for their hard work," Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear said of his team's good first half. "I think every game we step on the field, home or away, I'd like to see the guys impose their will on the other team. It gives you confidence, a boost of energy, when you get the first goal. Then the second goal right before half time was a really good one for us."
While the Dynamo have been seemingly untouchable at home, away from the friendly confines of BBVA, it's a bit of a different story.
The Dynamo won just once on the road last season in regular-season games and know they have a tough task on their hands in Portland.
Dynamo defender Eric Brunner has a unique take on the Timbers' home ground after playing in Portland for the past two seasons before being acquired by Houston this offseason.
"The way the stadium's set up, the sound stays inside, there's a giant building in the back that keeps the vibrations and noise bouncing off," he said. "It stays pretty loud so you have to be on your toes when you're playing there."


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All the boys from One Direction are taking a couple...
Stay professional
- by Hendrix
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- Updated: 15 Apr 2015
- Status: In Progress
Life is finally getting back on track for Emi when she gets to work as a designer for a record label but can she deal with her boy band clients? Will she start to see then in a different light from the hate she had before and can she remember to stay professional?
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Import M4V to iMovie, how to convert M4V to iMovie on Mac?
"I have some .m4v format videos. I want to edit them and make some videos in iMovie. But iMovie doesn't recognize this file when I import M4V to iMovie, is there a workaround?" A Mac user asked. As we know, iMovie should be as the ideal software for Mac users to edit videos, it supports many video formats but not all video formats are recongnized. M4V is a video format, if you can't import M4V to iMovie, you should convert M4V to iMovie supported video formats like MOV, MP4, DV, and so on.
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Schwarzenegger says new film has universal appeal
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — For his first starring role since before serving as California's governor for seven years, Arnold Schwarzenegger says he was looking for a film with universal appeal.
In "The Last Stand," Schwarzenegger plays the sheriff of an Arizona town tasked with stopping a Mexican cartel boss from returning to Mexico. It's the 65-year-old's first leading role since "Terminator 3″ a decade ago.
He said in Seoul on Wednesday that he tries to pick projects that "could be popular not only in America, but all over the world."
"The Last Stand," the debut Hollywood film of South Korean director Kim Jee-woon, opens in Seoul on Thursday. Schwarzenegger recalled his memories of South Korea from his bodybuilding days, saying "it's a major player in the world stage economically and in every other way."


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B7 Electives Requirement (39 credit units)Arts and Science courses, or those from other Colleges that have been approved for Arts and Science credit, to complete the requirements for 120 credit unit Honours program. Of the 120 credit units required at least 66 must be at the 200-level or higher and no more than 60 in one subject.
If you require further assistance, please contact the Arts & Science Undergraduate Student Office.


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By Dave Gibson
My uncle used to tell this story about when he was in the Navy… He and his small group of friends liked getting tattoos and talking about them. One shipmate in particular had an unusual tattoo, and he never wanted to talk about it. My uncle described it as a pig with a tree behind it, a bird in the tree and a moon in the sky. No matter how much coaxing, the sailor didn't want to talk about it. Finally, one day he gave in and said, "Alright, you wanna know? It's a ________________."
Now I had always chalked this up to another one of Uncle Harry's sea stories, until…
Fast forward about 20 years later… I'm in Honolulu at China Sea Tattoo visiting with Mike Malone and Doug Hardy, I've got a box of Sailor Jerry original flash on my lap. I'm looking through the different sheets, all these different designs, most of them I'd never seen before… Then, there it is! Can it be? Yes it is!
"Hey, do you guys know what this is?" I said.
Mike and Doug shrugged their shoulders, shaking their heads, "It's a bird's-eye view of a pig's ass in the moonlight."
What I'd always assumed to be a total lie or at best a homemade barn-poked special turned out to be a genuine tattoo, with genuine flash to back it up, by the genuine master…
Dave can be found here: abcdavegibson.com
Dave Gibson is featured in Tattoo Artist Magazine issue #22:


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Support Escuela at Amazon.com!Family HandbookWhat's for Lunch Today?
An opportunity to let your child share one or two of their favorite activities with you!
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Escuela del Sol was founded by a group of parents in 1968. The strong sense of community formed then persists today. We are a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) corporation governed by a Board of Trustees consisting of parents, members of the community at large, and staff representatives. Together with our art center, the school has a wonderful reputation for excellence, inclusion, and diversity. Through our outreach programs and service learning, and with the support and participation of school parents, Escuela del Sol is active in the community and partners with organizations such as Health Care for the Homeless and Wild Earth Guardians.
"Sol Sisters" are a group of moms who support the school in a variety of ways, from teacher-appreciation activities (food!) to fundraisers. Their counterpart, the "Sol Mates," gives fathers and other male friends the chance to see if they can better their spouses …. bigger, better fundraisers, more work, more help …. Who knows, with the sisters and their mates supporting school initiatives, the world is our oyster!
Our faculty, staff, and members of the community offer workshops throughout the year to support an understanding of Escuela's curriculum and approach - check out potential offerings on the Workshops webpage or look for specific topics and dates on our School Calendar.
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Oct. 23, 2008
PRINCETON, N.J. - After a strong showing last weekend at the Head of the Charles, Yale women's crew sends its boats to Princeton to compete in the Princeton Chase. The race, which, unlike the Head of the Charles, hosts only collegiate crews, will take place Sunday. The Bulldogs are the defending champions.
"The Princeton Chase is a great race. It is only college crews; it is run by the Princeton coaches and they know how to do it right," said head coach Will Porter. "We look forward to it every fall."
Last year, the Bulldogs took first place with a time of 14:28.953. They beat Virginia by 5.021 seconds. Yale's other boats finished in seventh, 16th and 28th.
This year, Yale will still be sending four boats to Princeton, but with a slightly different make-up. Three varsity eights and a novice eight will be competing. All three varsity eights, A, B and C, will be competing in the same race at Noon. The novice eight will be competing in a new event that will take place after the varsity event at 1:30 p.m.
The Bulldogs will be up against a number of crews, including BU, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Indiana, Minnesota, Penn, Princeton, Villanova and Virginia.
The race is a traditional head race, with all the entries from every school going off every 10 seconds, trying to chase each other down. The three-mile event is actually a two-and-three-quarter mile race, down Lake Carnegie.
Lake Carnegie is a man-made lake that is formed from a dam on the Millstone River. The lake was designed specifically for the Princeton crews and has since also become home to the Princeton Training Center, where many Olympic athletes train.
The defending national champion Bulldogs are coming off a weekend in which every crew medaled at the Head of the Charles. Yale's varsity eight took third in the Championship Eights event behind the Canadian National Team and Dutch National Team, but they were the number one collegiate crew. Yale's Championship Four also came in first among collegiate crews, and third overall in their event. Yale also recorded a first-place overall finish in the Club Eight.
But even in victory there is always room to improve.
"We have plenty of work to do coming off the Head of the Charles," said Porter. "We need to continue to work on the little things we do to get faster; we have a long way to go this year. We are just beginning to get into it. At this point you never know what can happen."
The Bulldogs will race starting at Noon on Sunday, Oct. 26
Report filed by Charles Moore '10, Yale Sports Publicity


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A Walled Wide Web for Nervous Autocrats
Beijing and Moscow see American information technology as a threat. They want systems of their own
At the end of 2010, the "open-source" software movement, whose activists tend to be fringe academics and ponytailed computer geeks, found an unusual ally: the Russian government. Vladimir Putin signed a 20-page executive order requiring all public institutions in Russia to replace proprietary software, developed by companies like Microsoft and Adobe, with free open-source alternatives by 2015.
The move will save billions of dollars in licensing fees, but Mr. Putin's motives are not strictly economic. In all likelihood, his real fear is that Russia's growing dependence on proprietary software, especially programs sold by foreign vendors, has immense implications for the country's national security. Free open-source software, by its nature, is unlikely to feature secret back doors that lead directly to Langley, Va.
Nor is Russia alone in its distrust of commercial software from abroad. Just two weeks after Mr. Putin's executive order, Iran's minister of information technology, citing security concerns, announced plans for a national open-source operating system. China has also expressed a growing interest. When state-owned China Mobile recently joined the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit entity behind the most famous open-source project, one of the company's executives announced—ominously to the ears of some—that the company was "looking forward to contributing to Linux on a global scale."
Information technology has been rightly celebrated for flattening traditional boundaries and borders, but there can be no doubt that its future will be shaped decisively by geopolitics. Over the past few years, policymakers around the world have had constant reminders of their growing dependence on—and vulnerability to—the new technology: the uncovering of the mysterious China-based GhostNet network, which spied on diplomatic missions around the globe; the purported crippling of Iran's nuclear capability by the Stuxnet virus; and, of course, the whole WikiLeaks affair. Governments are taking a closer look at who is providing their hardware, software and services—and they are increasingly deciding that it is dangerous not to develop independent national capabilities of their own.
Open-source software can allay some of these security concerns. Though such systems are more democratic than closed ones, they are also easier to manipulate, especially for governments with vast resources at their command. But open-source solutions can't deal with every perceived threat. As Google learned, the Chinese government continues to see Western search engines as a challenge to its carefully managed presentation of controversial subjects. Similarly, email can be read by the host government of the company offering the service, and the transmission of sensitive data can be intercepted via secret back doors and sent to WikiLeaks or its numerous local equivalents.
For these reasons, more governments are likely to start designating Internet services as a strategic industry, with foreign firms precluded from competing in politically sensitive niches. The Turkish government has emerged as the leading proponent of such "information independence," floating the idea of both a national search engine and a national email system. Authorities in Russia, China and Iran have debated similar proposals.
Judging by last year's standoff between the BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and the governments of India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, questions of access also will play a growing role in shaping technology. If a government suspects that the U.S. National Security Agency has arranged to be able to retrieve private emails sent with BlackBerry's secure encryption technology, it starts to wonder why it doesn't have similar streams of intelligence data, from BlackBerry as well as from services like Gmail and Skype. At a minimum, more governments will demand that data servers base their operations in their own jurisdictions, inconveniencing global Internet companies that have based their business plans on the assumption that they could run their Indian operations from Iowa.
The real Internet trade wars will begin once Russian and Chinese technology giants, with their poorly veiled government connections and piles of cash, come looking for American and European acquisitions. How will officials in Washington or Brussels react when China's Tencent (with a market capitalization of $42 billion, almost twice that of Yahoo) or Russia's Yandex makes a bid for AOL or Skype?
Painful decisions will need to be made soon. The Russian company Digital Sky Technologies, owned by a Kremlin-friendly oligarch, has a nearly 10% stake in Facebook and a 5% stakes in such hot Web properties as Zynga and Groupon. What will happen once Russian or Chinese firms seek to purchase a stake in companies like Google (a contractor to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency) or Amazon (which caters to nearly 20 U.S. government agencies through its Web hosting services)?
The unpleasant effects of this rising nationalism are already evident in the case of hardware exports. When Sprint Nextel began considering bids from China's Huawei and ZTE Technologies in 2010 for a projected $5 billion upgrade of its network, a group of American senators wrote to the company's chief executive, expressing their concern that Huawei might be subject to "significant influence by the Chinese military" and that communications in the U.S. could be "disrupted, intercepted, tampered with, or purposely misrouted." Sprint Nextel turned down the bids. The European Union recently announced plans to create an authority similar to the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment to specifically vet approaches from China's technology giants.
Even if they are spurned by the U.S. and Europe, China's tech giants are likely to resurface elsewhere. For several years China has been using its huge cash reserves to hand out loans—mostly to governments in Africa, but also to neighbors like Cambodia—with the condition that those governments only do business with China's telecom companies. With or without secret access to that data, the fact that China controls so much of the communications infrastructure in the developing world gives it political leverage.
At the same time, Yota, a partly state-owned Russian telecom provider, has been trying to build a base in Latin America, launching its 4G service in Nicaragua and, soon, in Peru. Other Russian companies are busy building (or buying up) the telecom infrastructure in the former Soviet republics, perhaps in a bid to do for the Internet what Russia's gas giant Gazprom has done for energy: build up physical infrastructure and then use it as a tool of political leverage.
What does all of this mean for the future of America's technology industry? If China's expansion into Africa and Russia's into Latin America and the former Soviet Union are any indication, Silicon Valley's ability to expand globally will be severely limited, if only because Beijing and Moscow have no qualms about blending politics and business.
The global triumph of American technology has been predicated on the implicit separation between the business interests of Silicon Valley and the political interests of Washington. In the past, foreign governments have rushed to install the latest version of Microsoft Office or Google's Chrome browser because it was hard to imagine that Washington would tinker with technology to advance its strategic interests.
But just a few weeks before Mr. Putin publicly endorsed open-source software, FBI Director Robert Mueller toured Silicon Valley's leading companies to ask their CEOs to build back doors into their software, making it easier for American law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies to eavesdrop on online conversations. The very possibility of such talks is likely to force foreign governments to reconsider their dependence on American technology. Whatever the outcome of Washington's engagement with the Internet, Silicon Valley will be the one to bear the costs.
For ordinary Internet users, there is one silver lining: The embrace of open-source technology by governments may result in more intuitive software applications, written by a more diverse set of developers. The possible downside is that the era of globally oriented services like Skype may soon come to an end, as they are replaced by almost certainly less user-friendly domestic alternatives that would provide secret back-door access. As governments seek to assert control, companies will be providing fewer and fewer guarantees about both data security and access by third parties—such as governments.
The irony in these developments is hard to miss. Information technology has been one of the leading drivers of globalization, and it may also become one of its major victims.
— Evgeny Morozov is a visiting scholar at Stanford University and a fellow at the New America Foundation. His new book is "The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom."


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Please see the new administrative memo here.
This intensive four week program will offer a choice of seven courses and will be complemented by interesting extracurricular activities for the participants to take part in. The courses are worth 1 credit each and students must take a minimum of 3 courses. There are two deadlines for the application to the Bucerius Summer Program 2009. To qualify for the reduced tuition fee, of €1,200, students must submit their application by December 31, 2008. All other applications must be received by April 30, 2009. These successful applicants will be required to pay the full tuition fee of €1,500.
Further information about the Bucerius Summer Program and the application form is available online at www.law-school.de/summerprogram.html.
Study-in-europe.org is a new resource for students interested in studying at any one of the 4,000 higher education institutions in Europe. The website features comprehensive information on universities and available programs in 32 European countries, including Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses, which are innovative cross-border graduate programs offered by consortiums of universities located in at least three different European countries. Study-in-Europe.org also offers an overview of the European higher education system, a guide to applying to European universities, and information about living in Europe.
Please visit us online: www.study-in-europe.org.
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Image Gallery: Scott Sisters Watercolours
In 1884 the Australian Museum purchased a collection of papers of the A.W (Walker) Scott family which included a remarkable set of 100 preliminary drawings and watercolour plates of moths and butterflies.
Beautifully executed and brilliantly coloured, these plates were completed during the 1840s through to the 1860s by Harriet and Helena Scott for the publication of their father's outstanding entomological publication Australian Lepidoptera and Their Transformations. Volume I was published in 1864 and Volume II was finally published in five parts between 1890 and 1898.
The plates, created for translation onto the lithographic stone, were drawn at life-size from living specimens of moths and butterflies at various stages of their life-cycles. They are preserved today as outstanding examples of 19th century scientific illustrations in the Australian Museum Archives.
The image in this gallery are titled with Scott's original names for the moths and butterflies. Many of these were never published, or represent species that were already described, or have since been reclassified.The current names can be seen when each image page is open.


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DOTHAN, Ala. - The future of cotton insect control will be centered on the "bug complex," says Auburn University Extension Entomologist Ron Smith.
"It appears to me in recent years that we've been leaving some cotton on the table to the bug complex," said Smith, speaking at the Wiregrass Cotton Expo held in Dothan. "The bug complex is very important, and it's not going away."
At one time, says Smith, growers were adept at controlling boll weevils. "You knew how to check for them and how to control them," he said. "Weevils were taken out of the system, and you got pretty good on worms. But we've moved on. With Bollgard and other genetically modified cotton varieties, this bug complex will only get worse.
"We're reducing the number of foliar sprays for worms. Our cotton fields basically are an insecticide-free environment for most of the season for this bug complex," says Smith.
Plant bugs are an economic pest of cotton, he says. "They're not as big a pest in the Wiregrass region of Alabama as in other parts of the state, and they're not the same every year. We conduct scouting schools each June in south Alabama. And almost every June, we go out and see cotton that's getting economic damage from plant bugs. They can be a problem, but it varies from year to year and from field to field," says Smith.
Growers or scouts can get an idea of the amount of plant bug pressure in a field by looking at the pinhead squares, says Smith. "You can see if they're still green and viable, or if they're turning yellowish, brown or black before they drop off the plant and leave a square. We suggest that you need 80 to 85 percent of your little squares set in early season on your first fruiting node branches.
"In a really bad plant bug year, that could drop to 50 or 60 percent. Someone needs to know when that's happening and go in and control those plant bugs," he says.
This is a situation where planting Bollgard cotton can be advantageous, says Smith. "In this part of the world, if you go in during June — at pre-bloom — and you have to spray for plant bugs, there's a good chance you'll get a worm infestation behind that spray. If so, it'll be tobacco budworms, and you'll need a $12 spray to clean that up with one of the new chemistries.
"That's an advantage of Bollgard cotton — you can spray plant bugs when you need to, without upsetting the system and getting into worm problems. That's the primary reason growers in the Tennessee Valley plant Bollgard cotton — so they can spray plant bugs when they need to."
After cotton begins blooming, growers should no longer monitor pinhead squares for plant bug damage, says Smith. "By that time, immature plant bugs are beginning to hatch out, and they like to feed in blooms. You can spot them by walking across a field and looking in white blooms. If you really want to quantify the immature plant bugs, you can shake them off onto a drop cloth. But most people won't do that, so we have a better way of deciding when plant bugs are a problem after bloom."
Smith advises growers to look for the damage being done by plant bugs. "This damage was done just before the bloom unfolded in the late square stage. They feed through, giving the bloom a 'dirty' appearance. This interferes with pollination and causes some 'hawk-shaped' bolls or poorly filled-out bolls."
In deciding when to spray for plant bugs, growers want to look for about 10 to 20 percent dirty blooms and adult and immature plant bugs in the blooms, says Smith.
Another insect pest causing concern is the fleahopper, he says. It's pale green and more fragile than a plant bug, but it is seen most years in south Alabama, he adds.
Also seen last year was the clouded plant bug, he says. "They are a much bigger, more robust plant bug. You don't normally see them early in the season — they came in last year after the first of July. They've always had a reputation of being more of a boll feeder, primarily because they are seen more towards the end of the season when bolls are present."
A more consistent problem in south Alabama's Wiregrass region, says Smith, is the stink bug. The stink bug, he says, has become more of a problem than some ever thought it would be.
"We knew it would be a problem when we took the weevil out of the system and took out worm sprays for Bollgard cotton, based on what we had seen in North Carolina. The mix of crops in the Southeast and the milder winters have made the stink bug problem greater than we ever imagined."
Most stink bug damage, he says, is done by the late instar nymph or the adult. They prefer bolls that are about 10 days old or about the diameter of a quarter, up until the boll is about 21 days old.
"To our knowledge, the stinkbug does not damage squares. But part of the equation we fail to factor in is that stinkbugs have a long lifecycle. It may take about 28 days to go through the immature stages. The adults will live for about a month. If you have a few stink bugs, they're not going away, and the situation won't get better."
You won't detect damaging levels of stink bugs, says Smith, by looking only for the adults. Stink bugs are very conscious of noise, he explains, and they will move away from you in a field.
"We've found that a better way to survey or scout is to look at these quarter-size diameter bolls that stink bugs prefer and slice or look internally to see if there's any damage. Sometimes, you'll see external damage, but there will be do damage inside. Other times, a boll may look normal on the outside but it's already damaged on the inside.
"We suggest that you slice these bolls. You're looking for brown tissue on the inside or a place where you can see where the mouthparts came through the boll wall. Other times, you'll see a callused area on the inside where the boll wall is trying to heal itself. Yellow-stained lint also is a good sign that you have stink bug damage."
Researchers started out by slicing the bolls to detect stink bug damage, says Smith. But slicing a boll, he adds, gives you only one cross-section look.
"It's actually better to crush these bolls, when they're about the size of a quarter and still soft. You can use a set of pliers, putting one side on the top and one on the bottom of the boll, and you can try and get a quick look at the entire boll."
Some states use a threshold of 20 percent damage, says Smith, but that may be too high. "People in the field are telling me that they're not using that threshold. That's real high, especially considering how long stink bugs stay in the field. I would suggest something in the neighborhood of 10 damaged bolls per hundred. I wouldn't argue with going even lower than that."
Stink bug control can be a problem, says Smith, especially if you have migration from other crops.
"In peanut country, and if you have corn drying down or maturing, you can get migration from these other crops. You'll get about two weeks of control unless you have this migration. In a bad stink bug year, it'll take multiple sprays to protect a crop against stink bugs. In south Alabama, July 15-20 is the ideal time to start concentrating on stink bug damage."
All stink bugs, says Smith, are not equal. In most years, growers deal primarily with the Southern green stink bug. This species is relatively easy to control, particularly with phosphate chemistry and some of the pyrethroids, he says.
"But there's a brown species, and in years like last year, it can dominate during some parts of the season. The brown stink bug is much more difficult to control. The pyrethroids, with the exception of Karate and Capture, don't do a very good job on the brown species. And even those two materials won't do a clean-up job. If you have brown stink bugs, you need to go to the phosphate chemistry — something like Orthene, Bidrin, methyl-parathion or malathion."
Another plant bug being seen in Alabama cotton fields is the leaf-footed plant bug, says Smith. "They come in late in the season, and they are becoming more common each year."
A couple of other insect pests also are becoming a problem for cotton producers, says Smith. "In the central part of Alabama, we've had a lot of problems in our conservation-tillage cotton with grasshoppers. Grasshoppers are a pest only from the time cotton emerges until it gets up to about the five or six true-leaf stage, because they cut down the stem."
Grasshoppers aren't big feeders on cotton, he says, but they will cut down the stem. "And we don't have a threshold for that. If you're losing too much stand, you need to control them. After cotton gets up to some size, grasshoppers will try and feed on the leaves, but that'll be of no consequence."
Another pest growers have noticed in recent years has been the three-cornered alfalfa hopper, notes Smith.
"This is an old soybean pest that girdles the stem of young cotton. They're a pest just in the seedling stage. They girdle like a beaver and leave swollen internodes around the plants. A couple of years ago, we had calls within 48 hours from Jay, Fla., to Talladega, Ala., and it was three-cornered alfalfa damage."
The three-cornered alfalfa hopper is another sporadic pest, says Smith, that will be worse in conservation-tillage fields. Plants damaged by the pest will turn a reddish color and wilt in the row.


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As one of the the most difficult economic climates in generations continues, Western countries still dominate the top 10 slots in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report, led by Switzerland and the United States.
But in the Middle East, 13 countries continue their upward trend of recent years, with a number of countries measurably improving their competitiveness. In this respect, significant differences between countries persist.
In many energy exporting countries, abundant oil windfall profits have triggered a wave of reforms aimed at improving competitiveness. As a result, some of the more successful reformers, such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, place in the top tier of the emerging markets.
Although non–oil exporting countries from the region also benefited from the boom through foreign investment and remittances, the progress in improving competitiveness has been less pronounced or nonexistent.
Click ahead to see where these countries rank in the Global Competitiveness Report.