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Sprinkled throughout the atmosphere are pale blue molecules of a toxic gas that are essential to most life on Earth. This gas is ozone.
Ozone is toxic because it is highly reactive. This is why it can sterilize drinking water, eliminate odors, bleach colors, and decompose rubber. Fortunately, the amount of ozone at ground level is usually too low for these effects to be observed. However, high concentrations of various air pollutants and sunlight can increase ozone levels near the ground from a few tens of molecules per billion molecules of air (ppb) to a few hundred ppb. These levels of ozone can damage plants, cause eye irritation, inflame mucous membranes and impair the performance of athletes.
Ozone is essential to life because it shields the Earth from the damaging, even lethal, ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun. This filtering ability is particularly remarkable when you consider the relative scarcity of ozone molecules. For every billion molecules in the atmosphere, only around 300 are ozone.
Imagine you could poke a tube through the entire atmosphere over your head and bring all the ozone molecules in the tube down to the surface. If they were then subjected to the same temperature and atmospheric pressure (standard temperature and pressure or STP) as you are, they would form a layer only about 3-millimeters thick.
Although they may be formed in many different ways, all the ozone molecules in the stratosphere are identical. An oxygen molecule (O2) is composed of two oxygen atoms (O). Ultraviolet radiation can split an O2 molecule and leave behind two free O atoms. Various chemical reactions leave O atoms as a byproduct. In either case, the free O atom can merge with an O2 molecule to form triatomic oxygen (O3), more commonly known as ozone.
Figure 1: Formation of ozone molecules
The term "ozone layer" generally refers to a relatively high concentration of ozone in the stratosphere, a layer of very dry air around 15 to 35 kilometers (9 to 22 miles) above the Earth's surface. However, about 10 percent of the total ozone is found in the troposphere, the lowest portion of the atmosphere. The troposphere contains 90 percent of the atmosphere and nearly all of the atmosphere's water vapor. Storms form in the troposphere and usually stay there. But the tops of especially powerful thunderstorms occasionally poke into the lower stratosphere.
The tropopause, the border between the troposphere and the stratosphere, ranges from around 10 to 15 kilometers above the surface. The heat of summer increases the height of the tropopause; the height is reduced in winter.Other things being equal, when the tropopause is low, the amount of stratospheric ozone is high and vice versa.
Figure 2: Atmospheric distribution
The ozone between the surface and the tropopause forms only a fraction of the ozone over most locations. Nevertheless, it absorbs solar UV more efficiently than an equal amount of stratospheric ozone. This is because scattering caused by dust and aerosols increases the distance that rays of sunlight travel on their way to the surface. In spite of this benefit, tropospheric ozone is often referred to as "bad" ozone because of its adverse effects in high concentrations. If the same ozone were somehow to drift into the stratosphere, it would be called "good" ozone.
Forming and Destroying Tropospheric Ozone
Tropospheric ozone is produced in many ways. Some is formed by lightning or by UV radiation from the sun. Most is formed by chemical reactions which take place in the presence of sunlight.
One such reaction is the conversion of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) into nitrogen oxide (NO) in the presence of solar UV. The O atom left over from this reaction combines with an O2 molecule to form an ozone molecule. Various other gases in the atmosphere can combine with NO to form more NO2, which then can cause a buildup of ozone. Gaseous organic chemicals, in the presence of nitrogen oxides and sunlight, can also contribute to ozone production.
The same photo-chemistry that forms ozone can also destroy it. Indeed, some photochemical processes in the atmosphere are called "do-nothing" reactions since they destroy as much ozone as they create. Ultraviolet radiation leaking through the ozone high in the stratosphere can also create and destroy ozone in the troposphere.
Measuring Tropospheric Ozone
There are several ways to measure tropospheric ozone. Since ozone is a strong oxidizer, it changes the color of some chemical compounds and solutions. For example, paper soaked in a mixture of starch and potassium iodide will change color when exposed to ozone.
The reaction of ozone with various chemicals, gases, and even some lubricating oils causes a faint luminescence that can be detected by a sensitive photomultiplier tube. Detection systems such as this are known as chemiluminescence detectors.
Since ozone absorbs ultraviolet radiation so effectively, many kinds of ozone detectors incorporate a UV lamp and a detector. Air is passed through a chamber, and any attenuation is assumed to have been caused by ozone. A problem with this method is that attenuation can also be caused by dust. Therefore, it's common practice to use two chambers, one of which receives air from which any ozone has been scrubbed by a catalytic converter. Alternatively, scrubbed and unscrubbed air can be passed in sequence through the same chamber. Either way, the error caused by dust and other contaminants in the ozone-free sample can then be determined by subtraction.
Sulfur dioxide and other chemicals can interfere with the chemical and UV detection of ozone. When scientists at the Montsouris observatory near Paris became aware of this problem in 1905, they built a second chemical ozone detector. The air inlet for the new detector was fitted with a 4-meter (13-feet) hose of natural rubber, which completely destroyed any ozone passing through it. In this way any errors in the original detector caused by gases other than ozone could be eliminated.
Several times my son Eric and I have measured the amount of tropospheric ozone between the bottom and top of mountains in New Mexico. We do this by measuring the total amount of ozone in the atmosphere with a UV-sensitive instrument that is pointed at the sun. One of us goes to the top of a mountain while the other stays at the base. We then make a series of observations at prearranged times. Later, we subtract the ozone measured at the mountaintop from the measurements made at the base to determine the amount of ozone in between. So far our results (a few Dobson Units per vertical kilometer; see Figure 5 in printed article) have agreed with measurements made from balloons by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Tropospheric Ozone Cycles
The amount of ozone above any given spot of Earth is rarely constant. Consider the diurnal or daily ozone cycle over Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Early on a July morning at the base of the Sandia Mountain aerial tramway just northeast of the city, ground-level ozone concentration might be, say, 20-30 ppb. As the sun rises high in the sky, photochemical ozone production increases, especially when the wind is from the southwest and the clean mountain air is spiked with nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons from automobile exhaust. Although little or no photochemical smog may be visible, the ozone concentrations might reach 40-60 ppb by late afternoon. As the sun sinks behind the volcano cinder cones west of Albuquerque, the ozone level also falls. Late that evening, the ozone returns to its normal "background" level.
Tropospheric Ozone Trends and Effects
The ozone measured at the ground near Paris, France, from 1876-86 was only around a third to a half of what is usual in unpolluted areas today. The increase since then is generally believed to be caused by human activities. At least two-thirds of the nitrogen oxides are believed to come from the burning of fossil fuels, wood, forests and agricultural wastes. Nitrogen oxides are also produced naturally by lightning, forest fires, and soil. Organic chemicals, such as methane and hydrocarbons, can be byproducts of plants, animals, and human activity.
It's interesting to compare the amount of ozone in a vertical column of air adjacent to a mountain with that over a city. In the summer of 1989, Eric and I measured 5.8 DU (Dobson Units) of ozone between the base and crest of Sandia Mountain, an altitude difference of 1,164 meters (3,819 feet). A few weeks earlier I had measured about 5 DU of ozone between street level and an observation deck atop the 110th floor of the World Trade Center in New York City (420 meters or 1,377 feet). There was much more ozone in the air above New York City than in the air near Sandia Mountain.
Surprisingly, however, much of the air at street level has less ozone than you might expect. A government official who makes ozone measurements at fixed sites told me that ozone levels can be much higher in the air over New York and in the surrounding regions than at ground level in the city. Apparently the high number of air pollutants, people, rubber tires, and the like, suppresses ozone concentrations at street level.
Figure 3: New York City ozone levels
When California forced a significant reduction of hydrocarbon emissions from automobiles, the ozone in downtown Los Angeles fell. Ozone levels downwind, however, continued to rise. The scientists who puzzled over this dilemma noticed that there is considerably more vegetation down-wind from the central city. They concluded that ozone is reduced only when both hydro-carbons and nitrogen oxides are reduced.
The relationship of trees and ozone is particularly interesting. Too much ozone can damage or even kill trees. Ironic-ally, trees emit hydrocarbons that participate in chemical re-actions that produce ozone. Several years ago William Chameides of the Georgia Institute of Tech-nology studied satellite images of Atlanta and found that 57 percent of the city was wooded. He and his co-workers concluded that Atlanta's trees emitted at least as many hydrocarbons as the city's cars, trucks, buses and factories.
Most references to the ozone layer mean the ozone found in the stratosphere. There it forms a vaporous shield that protects life on Earth from the lethal effects of the sun's UV radiation. If you've flown in the Concorde, then you have probably travelled through the bottom of the stratospheric ozone layer.
Forming and Destroying Stratospheric Ozone
Ozone in the stratosphere is formed by a natural photochemical process when ultraviolet radiation from the sun splits molecules of oxygen into the individual oxygen atoms from which they are formed. The free O atoms soon react with O2 molecules to form O3.
This process works both ways: O3 molecules that are unlucky enough to be struck by UV radiation are split back to an O2 molecule and a free O atom. The free O atom can merge with an O2 molecule to once again form an O3 molecule.
Ozone molecules that drift lower down in the stratosphere are protected from the destructive effects of UV radiation by the overlying blanket of ozone molecules. But even molecules of ozone deep in the ozone layer are not entirely safe, for they can be destroyed by reactions involving sunlight and oxides of nitrogen, hydrogen, chlorine, and bromine. Although all these chemicals can arise from natural sources, they can also arise from human activity. For example, manufactured chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have been a concern since 1970 when James E. Lovelock detected their presence in air. In 1974, Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina proposed that CFC molecules could eventually drift into the stratosphere, where UV radiation would break them down into chlorine monoxide (ClO) and other ozone-destroying compounds.
In recent years, evidence has been accumulating that CFCs may indeed be causing a gradual reduction of ozone, particularly in regions near the poles during early spring. The question now being researched is how much ozone they might ultimately destroy. Fortunately solar UV is constantly creating new ozone. Therefore, CFCs cannot destroy all the ozone.
Measuring Stratospheric Ozone
Ozone in the stratosphere can be measured directly using instruments on aircraft, rockets, andespeciallyballoons. Many of the same kinds of sensing systems used for measuring ozone at the surface have been modified for these roles.
Thanks to ozone's well-known ability to absorb ultraviolet radiation, the total amount of ozone (troposphere plus stratosphere) can be measured indirectly from the surface or from space. Several kinds of optical instruments have been developed for measuring ozone from the surface, including the Dobson spectrophotometer and various instruments that use filters or diffraction gratings to measure narrow bands of ultraviolet.
The Dobson spectrophotometer plays a key role in ground-based ozone monitoring efforts. Invented in the late 1920's by G. M. B. Dobson, this instrument divides sunlight into a spectrum with a prism and measures the ratio of two UV wavelengths about 20 nanometers (nm) apart. Dust and aerosols can cause errors in ozone observations by scattering one wavelength more than another. Dobson observations are usually made at two pairs of wavelengths to cancel out this error.
The Dobson instrument is expensive, nearly 2 meters (6 ft) long, and heavyabout 40 kilograms (85 pounds). Since it measures the ratio of two or more ultraviolet signals, it provides no informa-tion about the amount of solar ultraviolet.
The Brewer ozonometer uses a diffraction grating to separate the sun's ultraviolet wavelengths. (A diffraction grating consists of several parallel grooves that split light up into several wavelengths. A compact disk produces an effect much like a diffraction gratingexcept that the rainbow colors are produced by parallel rows of pits instead of grooves.) This expensive instrument is smaller than the Dobson and well-suited for automated data taking. It also measures sulfur dioxide, a gas that can interfere with ozone measurements. Some scientists believe that the Brewer measures ozone with higher precision than the Dobson. Indeed, Canada has switched from Dobsons to Brewers.
A third kind of instrument uses optical filters to measure two or more UV wavelengths. Such instruments are cheaper, smaller, and easier to use than the Dobson and the Brewer. They also provide information about the sun's direct ultraviolet. For these reasons, I selected the filter approach when designing an instrument to measure total ozone several years ago.
Some sensors on satellites can measure the amount of ozone at various altitudes by observing the sun as it rises and sets through the atmosphere above the Earth's limb (an astronomical term referring to the edge of a planetary body's disk). Other satellite sensors measure the amount of the sun's ultraviolet that is scattered back into space from the atmosphere below. Since these wavelengths are absorbed by ozone, processing the backscatter from one or more pairs of wavelengths permits one to estimate the amount of ozone between the satellite and the ground.
It's important to note the latter kind of instrument cannot measure all the ozone between the top of the atmosphere and the surface. Clouds can get in the way, and little or none of the UV backscattered from the lowest few kilometers above the surface can penetrate back through the ozone layer. An estimate of lower tropospheric ozone is added to the satellite ozone equation to correct this problem. The estimate is based on measurements made from the ground during annual calibration checks and measurements made by balloon sensors.
Stratospheric Ozone Cycles
Superimposed on the daily ozone cycle near the ground are seasonal changes in the amount of stratospheric ozone. In the northern hemisphere, the total amount of ozone is lowest during winter. The amount of ozone begins to rise rapidly during spring and gradually diminishes in the summer and fall.
This gradual seasonal variation in ozone is marked by sharp spikes and dips associated with weather systems. Passage of a cold front, for example, may cause the amount of ozone to increase 20 percent or more for a day or two. A warm front may cause an comparable decrease. Meterologists refer to regions of diminished ozone as ozone minimums, and regions of high ozone as ozone maximums.
I'll never forget the giant ozone maximum that passed over South Texas on March 16, 1990 (See Figure 6, page 8 of printed version). That morning I made a few ozone observations around 11:00 a.m. and was surprised to find the highest amount of ozone I had ever measured, around 360 DU. Since the ozone amount kept climbing as noon approached, I assumed something was wrong with the instrument. But both filters were clean, no wires were dangling in front of them, and the battery was fresh.
After 1:00 p.m. the ozone amount climbed even faster than it had before noon. By 1:30 p.m. it was more than 440 DU and shortly before 2:00 p.m. it reached 460 DU. The ozone amount then began a sharp slide to pre-noon levels.
Several months later, data from the TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) instrument aboard the Nimbus-7 satellite confirmed the extraordinarily high ozone levels of March 16. My son Eric wrote a Pascal program that transformed the TOMS data into a color-coded ozone map of the United States. The map disclosed an enormous tongue of high ozone reaching down from Canada and ending in South Texas. A check of weather records revealed that this ozone maximum was associated with a giant weather system that moved in from the Pacific and crossed the United States over a 3-day period.
Figure 4: How ozone is measured
Figure 5: Annual cycles over Texas
Figure 6: Unusually high levels over Texas
Stratospheric Ozone
Trends and Effects
Recall that most ground observations of the ozone layer measure the total amount of ozone in a column between the instrument and the top of the atmosphere. Therefore, these measurements include the total amount of both tropospheric and stratospheric ozone.
Daily measurements of the amount of total column ozone have been made at Arosa, Switzerland since 1926. The total amount of ozone back to 1912 has been determined by a careful analysis of solar measurements made by the Smithsonian Institution. Since 1957, more than 70 Dobson spectrophotometers have made regular measurements of ozone.
These measurements show that the total amount of ozone varies in cycles that may last a decade or more. For example, during the 1960's, scientists at NOAA found that ozone over North America increased by about 5 percent. Since 1970, however, ozone over the northern hemisphere has declined around 5 percent. Since this decline is seen in both measurements from the ground and from satellites, there is little disagreement that it is real. But there is consider-able disagreement concerning the reason for the decline, and its significance.
Some scientists believe the decline is primarily a byproduct of natural metero-logical cycles, a changing climate and possibly the solar cycle. They support their case by pointing to ozone cycles over the past 50 or more years. Others believe the decline is in large part caused by contami-nation of the atmosphere by pollutants that contribute to the destruction of ozoneparticularly CFCs. Some believe the eruption of major volcanoes such as El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991 exacerbate the problem. Still others believe ozone is impacted both by natural meteorological trends and ozone-destroying chemicals.
These issues are being studied and debated by the scientists who study ozone. Meanwhile, as has been widely reported in the press, there has been considerable political fallout over the issue of declining ozone.
That's one reason why more than 70 nations have signed the Montreal Protocol, an agreement to eventually ban production of most CFCs. Because it is believed that CFSs can remain in the atmosphere for decades, even a total ban will not restore the ozone to its pre-1970 conditionif indeed CFC's are the principal culprit. Instead, ozone will continue to decline at, perhaps, a few percent or so per decade until CFCs are no longer present.
If the spectral sensitivity of a honey bee's eyes could somehow be added to yours, rainbows would have an additional streak of color adjacent to the violet band. This invisible band of "black light" is known as ultraviolet radiation.
Ultraviolet radiation is divided into three bands. The wave-lengths below 290 nm are referred to as UV-C. The wavelengths between 290 and 320 nm are referred to as UV-B. And the wavelengths between 320 and 340 nm are known as UV-A. The ozone layer blocks all UV-C. The UV-B that leaks through is what causes sunburn.
The Ultraviolet Sky
The sky is blue because most of its molecules are just the right size to scatter the blue wavelengths of sunlight. These molecules also scatter UV wavelengths. This means that the entire daytime sky is a gigantic source of UV-A and UV-B (remember that all the UV-C is absorbed by ozone).
The UV radiation from the sky can be described as direct, diffuse, or global. Direct radiation is that which comes directly from the sun. Diffuse radiation is that scattered from clouds and molecules of air. Global is the sum of direct and diffuse UV radiation. Most natural materials reflect UV rather poorly. But snow is an excellent UV reflector; and so is water. In short, exposed parts of your body can receive a signifi-cant does of UV even when shaded from the direct sun.
Ultraviolet Hazards
The energy of electromagnetic radiation is inversely related to its wavelength. In other words, radiation with short wavelengthslike x-rayshas much higher energy than radiation with longer wavelengths, such as visible light. For this reason, ultraviolet radiation is more energetic than visible light.
That's why the sun's UV-B radiation readily causes sunburn while UV-A and visible sunlight do not, even though much more UV-A and visible light reach the earth. (Of course, even visible sunlight will cause sunburn if it is concentrated with a lens or reflector.) The sun's UV-B can also damage the chromosomes in human skin cellswhich can eventually lead to skin cancer. Excessive UV-B can also cause cataracts and alter the immune system.
Plants can be damaged by excessive UV-B. So can organisms that live at least part of their life cycle near the surfaces of lakes, rivers and oceans. More research is needed to better understand the nature of such damage and the amount and wave-lengths of UV that are responsible.
Ultraviolet Benefits
The public has been frequently reminded about the dangers of UV-B exposure. It's important to realize, however, that solar UV also plays an essential role in human health.
Perhaps the most important contribution of solar UV is its ability to stimulate the production of vitamin D in the outer layers of the skin. This gives UV the ability to prevent and to cure rickets and to maintain a healthy skeleton. Both natural and artificial UV radiation are also used to treat psoriasis.
Measuring Ultraviolet Radiation
If you've ever retrieved a rolled up newspaper which has lain in the summer sun for a few hours, you know that newsprint darkens when exposed to solar UV. So does freshly cut or sanded pine and other woods. Colored construction paper and fabrics are bleached by solar UV.
A few years ago during a field trip to New Mexico, my son and I tacked a strip of freshly sanded pine atop the crate bolted in the back of our pickup that carried our instruments and supplies. We covered the wood with a strip of tape, several centimeters of which we removed each day. After 10 days on the UV-drenched highways of Texas and New Mexico, the strip of wood was divided into 10 segments, each slightly darker than the next.
Some chemicals will also change color when exposed to solar UV. But an electronic instru-ment is necessary to quantitatively measure the intensity of UV. The two principle kinds of UV sensors used with such instruments are photo-tubes and solid-state detectors. Specialized phototubes known as photomultipliers can be made exceptionally sensitive to UV. But they are expensive, fragile, and require a high operating voltage. Solid-state detectors are not as sensitive. In addition, they are are cheaper, sturdier, and much easier to use.
An optical filter can be placed between a UV detector and the sun to enable the detector to respond only to specific regions of the UV spectrum. Alternatively, a prism or grating can be used to select specific wavelengths.
Various methods are used to measure direct, diffuse and global UV. Direct UV is easily measured by placing the detector inside a collimator tube that limits its field of view. Ideally, the field of view of the collimator should not exceed a few degrees.
Global UV is measured by placing a diffuser plate (such as ground silica or diffuse UV-transmitting plastic) over the detector and its filter.
Diffuse UV can be measured with a global detector by placing a small disk so that its shadow completely covers the detector. This blocks direct sunlight so that the detector signal is entirely from the diffuse sky. Subtracting the diffuse amount from the global value gives the direct UV.
Ozone absorbs some of the sun's infrared radiation. It even weakly absorbs the wavelengths around 600 nm, which appear orange to the human eye. Its most important absorption, of course, occurs at UV wavelengths below around 340 nm. The absorption increases so rapidly below 320 nm that little or no measurable radiation below 295 nm reaches the surface at sea level.
As noted, it's important to understand that the scattering caused by dust and aerosols can cause ozone near the ground to absorb more UV than an equal amount of ozone in the stratosphere. This helps explain why some scientific studies have found a slight decrease in UV-B over the past decade, a time during which the amount of stratos-pheric ozone has decreased and the amount of tropospheric ozone has increased.
Evaluating claims about the ozone layer requires basic knowledge not only about ozone and its effects on ultraviolet, but about the research methods that have been used to understand the ozone layer's dynamics. Hopefully, this article has provided some of that knowledgeand perhaps even sparked some interest in doing some independent investigating. If so, be sure to check out some of the resources mentioned on the Readings about Ozone and Ultraviolet page. Also, be sure to read the other articles in this issue, on the ozone hole and on the health effects of UV.
Return to Currents in Science, Technology, and Society Web Page
File date: 5/30/95
updated: 6/23/95


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Here, Treat Yourself to a Random Penny-Ante Mad Men Prop
Now that the show's done and everybody's satisfied that Don never became D.B. Cooper, it's time to do away with all the props of Mad Men. Which means that if you've got some extra cash, you could be the proud owner of some smart midcentury accessories (or some hideous '70s tchotchkes, if that's your thing).

subset: commoncrawl


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Steam Curator: Just Good PC Games
The PC community has grown a good deal in a really limited time frame and there isnt any reason to believe the game wont be equally as addicting for Xbox players. The site states its something PUBG Corp wants to add down the road, perhaps as soon as the game is finished, as shown by a Microsoft representative. More info about the 3 PUBG cosmetic packs are found over on Xbox Wire. The lot of different cheats weve encountered has far surpassed our expectations. Start out with our substantial range of PUBG ideas, which provides you with a whopping number of approaches to assist in improving your game. Just ensure you choose only the appropriate account for you! At times you will discover that you require a different video card to totally experience what the game offers. The Honest to Goodness Truth on Pubg Warrior Pack Nevertheless, its always tough to locate a trustworthy seller of a Black Desert account on account of the risk involved in these sorts of transactions. Bring on such a desert map! We guess because its about becoming the lone survivor, even if theres a lot of teamwork on the way.
The game will probably remain in early access for some moment. It continues to attract new players that are hoping to get that sweet, sweet chicken dinner. This usually means youre have to begin downloading the game at midnight, and after that begin playing once PUBG is installed. There isnt just one play through of Black Desert that ends up the same because its up to the player to determine the method by which they level. Because of this, players will need to use the Xbox Game Preview program to be able to play the game. Xbox One players might have to wait somewhat longer for the full-release edition. They will also be able to purchase some exclusive content in the form of special cosmetic packs. Things You Should Know About Pubg Warrior Pack


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FriendsInJapan is a leading international site for meeting Japanese people. Our member base of over 5 million includes 990,000 attractive Japanese people from Japan and the rest of world. They come to FriendsInJapan to share, have fun and to form meaningful acquaintances.
Who Can I Meet on FriendsInJapan?


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Chair Twomey will call the meeting to order.
Chair Twomey will address the committee and ask for approval of the minutes.
Proposed Action: Approval. Motion and second required.
Chair Twomey will address those in attendance and offer opportunity for open comments.
Proposed Action:
No motion required.
Each year, Florida's public universities are required to submit a Fixed Capital Outlay Request to the Board of Governors for potential incorporation into the Board of Governors' budget request. At the same time, they are expected to submit a Five-Year Capital Outlay request.
The University of North Florida's Board of Trustees is charged with approving and submitting the PECO plan for the university in consultation with the President. The attached schedule shows UNF's proposed one-year and five-year capital requests (PECO). Each of the items included in this proposed request is consistent with the university's goals and master plan.
Vice President Shuman will address the committee and present the PECO submissions.
Proposed Action: Approval. Motion and second required.
This regulation is being amended to correct out-of-date references and remove the term "financial" as it refers to the university's advance payment for goods and services.
Vice President Shuman will address the committee and ask for approval of the proposed regulation.
The OIA will present an update detailing the status of audit activities including internal audits, advisory services, investigations, follow-up activity and administrative tasks.
Mr. Robert Berry, Interim Director for the OIA, will address the Committee and present this status update.
Proposed Action: Review. No motion required.
Vice President Shuman will present this quarter's budget report.
Vice President Shuman will present the current treasurer's report.
Chair Twomey will adjourn the meeting.
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New Metadata Standards for Digital Resources: MODS and METS
Rebecca Guenther and Sally McCallum are with the Network Development and MARC Standards Office at the Library of Congress. Rebecca Guenther can be reached at email@example.com
Metadata has taken on a new look with the advent of XML and digital resources. XML provides a new versatile structure for tagging and packaging metadata as the rapid proliferation of digital resources demands both rapidly produced descriptive data and the encoding of more types of metadata. Two emerging standards are attempting to harness these developments for library needs. The first is the Metadata Object and Description Schema (MODS), a MARC-compatible XML schema for encoding descriptive data. The second standard is the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS), a highly flexible XML schema for packaging the descriptive metadata and various other important types of metadata needed to assure the use and preservation of digital resources.
MODS Development
The Library of Congress' Network Development and MARC Standards Office developed MODS (www.loc.gov/standards/mods/) in consultation with interested experts to satisfy the expressed need for an abbreviated XML version of MARC 21. XML is being increasingly deployed in computer applications, particularly on the Web, as a richer, more flexible alternative to HTML. Many have expressed the need to move to XML for metadata in libraries and other cultural institutions. It is appropriate for an XML version of MARC to be investigated since it is perhaps the oldest metadata standard designed for use in computers.
Over the years people have expressed concerns about the number of data elements in MARC and their complexity. Some have suggested use of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (http://dublincore.org), although that set is intended to satisfy a broader range of purposes and communities than MARC 21. In order to address these concerns about MARC and also allow for a rich description, the Library of Congress developed MODS, an XML schema with language-based tags that includes a subset of data elements derived from MARC 21. It is intended to carry selected data from existing MARC 21 records as well as to enable the creation of original resource description records.
MODS is intended to complement other metadata formats and to provide an alternative between a simple metadata format with a minimum of fields and little or no substructure such as Dublin Core and a very detailed format with many data elements having various structural complexities such as MARC 21. MODS has a high level of compatibility with MARC records because it inherits the semantics of the equivalent data elements in the MARC 21 bibliographic format. Thus, it is richer than Dublin Core and more compatible with library data than ONIX (www.editeur.org/onix.html), which was developed for the book industry, but it is also simpler than the full MARC format (either as ISO 2709 or full MARCXML). It is more "friendly" because it uses language-based tags that can be easily understood by anyone dealing with the "raw" record, as opposed to the numeric tags traditional to MARC.
Most elements that have been defined in MODS have equivalents in the MARC 21 bibliographic format. In addition the Library of Congress has made available mappings between MARC and MODS and vice versa (www.loc.gov/standards/mods/modsmapping.html; www.loc.gov/standards/mods//mods2marcmapping.html). Since MODS elements inherit the semantics of MARC elements, an element in MODS has the meaning detailed in the MARC 21 bibliographic format.
In MODS some elements in MARC have been repackaged, for example in cases where several data elements are brought into one. This repackaging occurs in the MODS element genre, which uses controlled values that are used in various MARC elements, particularly in fixed fields. The Library of Congress has made available a controlled list of genre values found in various places in the MARC 21 bibliographic format to be used with the MODS genre element (www.loc.gov/marc/sourcecode/genre/genrelist.html).
MODS, like MARC 21, does not assume the use of any particular cataloging code. It can accommodate record content that is full AACR2 with authoritative name and subject headings, uncontrolled by cataloging rules, or anything in-between.
Since MODS is a subset of MARC, decisions were made about which elements to include, which to combine with others to form a single element and which to drop altogether. For instance, there are numerous types of relationships that are expressed in the MARC linking entry fields. These are carried in MODS under relatedItem with a type attribute to express the type of relationship. Not all relationships in MARC are given type values.
Certain MODS elements define concepts that recur in more than one element as sub-elements. XML facilitates using the same definition for multiple elements. For example, "name" can be the primary name associated with the resource or a name associated with a related item; in MODS, both use the same definition. This concept is certainly present in MARC 21 but not as consistently as in MODS.
Since MODS includes a subset of MARC 21 bibliographic fields, it allows for a conversion from MARC 21 fields to MODS, while other MARC 21 fields may be dropped or carried in a less specific manner. The MODS schema does not target "round-tripability" with MARC 21. A converted record may lose some of its tagging, for instance, when the tagging is simpler, or accommodate some data even when there is not an equivalent data element. When an XML schema is desired that does not result in any data loss, the MARC 21 XML schema may be used (www.loc.gov/standards/marcxml/), since it allows for the expression of a full MARC record in XML. For any conversion between MARC in ISO 2709 format and MODS, it is expected that the record would first go through a conversion to MARCXML before a transformation to the subset that is MODS. The Library of Congress is providing tools for the conversion from MARC 21 to MARCXML with a further transformation to MODS.
Prospective Uses
The need for a rich metadata standard such as MODS has been expressed by members of the digital library and related communities as they attempt to implement projects involving search and retrieval, management of complex digital objects, integrating metadata from library databases with other non-MARC sources and other functions.
The "Search/Retrieve Web Service" (SRW) in ZING (Z39.50 International Next Generation ) (www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/zing/srwu/srw.html) is a proof-of-concept initiative to develop value-added search and retrieve applications built on Z39.50 along with Web technologies XML, SOAP/RPC and HTTP. It defines a search service that specifies metadata schemas for retrieval. Since it uses XML, an XML metadata schema is needed, and one compatible with library data such as MODS would be desirable.
The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (www.openarchives.org/) harvests MARC records from multiple systems and makes them available widely. Generally, the records have been available in MARC (using MARC tagging and syntax in MARCXML) or simple Dublin Core in XML. The Library of Congress is planning to incorporate MODS as an alternate format for its over 100,000 metadata records that describe various forms of material digitized for American Memory. This will allow for the export of richer metadata than the Dublin Core record, which drops much of the metadata, but provides simpler data than full MARCXML.
MODS may be used for original resource description that allows for rich description that is generally compatible with existing library data and is expressed in XML syntax. Because it includes a subset of MARC fields and repackages some of them, it is particularly useful for technician input.
An additional use of MODS is as an extension schema for descriptive metadata for a METS object, as detailed later in this paper.
Experimentation with MODS
Since MODS was officially made available in June 2002, experimentation is just beginning. In June 2002, MODS was frozen for a six-month trial, although suggested additions are being listed on the MODS website. The following describes a few sample experiments.
· The Library of Congress' AudioVisual Prototyping Project is exploring aspects of digital preservation for audio and video. This collaborative project is developing approaches for packaging digital content, with a focus on metadata (http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mopic/avprot/avprhome.html). The project is experimenting with METS for packaging the digital object and its metadata and is implementing MODS for use as its descriptive metadata schema, particularly because of the rich descriptions of relationships with other items that may be expressed. Where possible metadata is being reused from descriptive cataloging records in one of the Library's databases with minimal data loss. In some cases, original resource description is provided and a MODS template is used.
· MINERVA (Mapping the Internet: Electronic Resources Virtual Archive) is an experimental pilot developed to identify, select, collect and preserve websites (http://lcweb.loc.gov/minerva/minerva.html). LC is collaborating with the Internet Archive (Alexa), SUNY and the University of Washington to collect and archive websites, providing descriptive metadata that will be used to search, retrieve and analyze the archived collections. Metadata will be created for websites in the collection using the MODS schema because of its compatibility with MARC data, to be used in the search and retrieval system and later converted to MARC and added to the Library's online catalog.
· The University of Chicago Press is implementing a project to support the development of the Chicago Digital Distribution Center, which would be built upon its traditional distribution center and involves making digital books available for distribution. The Press harvests MARC records to enhance searchability and for export to their client presses, converting them into MODS for more concise description and more understandable language-based tags.
· The California Digital Library is establishing a generic METS repository infrastructure to help manage the digital objects in its control. A project provides for search and display of 1,500 records for books published online by the CDL on behalf of the University of California Press. Records are extracted from the union catalog and transformed to MODS, then inserted into the METS record. Specified fields are used for indexing and searching as well as in response to an Open Archives Initiative Harvesting Protocol query.
The Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) (www.loc.gov/standards/mets) grew out of several experimental 1990s digital projects. In February 2001, the Digital Library Federation convened a meeting of experts from several projects to evaluate what had been learned with respect to metadata and to decide how to go forward. Out of that meeting came the idea for METS, an XML document that packages the metadata associated with a digital resource the descriptive, administrative, structural, rights and other data needed for retrieving, preserving and serving up digital resources. Then, in a little over a year the METS XML schema was developed, a maintenance structure set up and experimentation worldwide began.
METS metadata is essential for a digital material repository, where digital resources over 7 million at LC alone are stored along with information about the resources. A repository, which can take many configurations, is the instrument for access and preservation of the objects. The METS data is also important for the interchange of digital objects for viewing and use by other systems. If the digital resource has with it the METS description, the file should be usable for many activities at the receiving system.
Characteristics of METS
METS is an open standard, not a proprietary one. Library system staff and librarians who also participate in developments in the Internet community are constructing it. Jerome McDonough of NYU serves in the critical role of editor-in-chief of the METS XML schema. The Library of Congress has agreed to serve as the maintenance agency for the standard building a website for METS, supporting an open listserv for implementers and working on extension schema. Recently an editorial board was formed of major contributors to the development thus far with the intent to identify and bring in global partners. The schema is now complete and stable enough to consider taking it to a formal standards body such as ISO or NISO.
The structure of the METS schema is highly flexible and relatively simple. It is conceptually six modules that contain and/or point to the different types of metadata needed for a digital resource. In several of the modules the METS standard does not define the metadata elements and tags to be used. It allows the user to choose a standard "extension" schema and identify and use it. For several modules it allows the metadata to reside outside the package, pointed to from within the METS document. These features exemplify the flexibility of METS.
The METS "Package"
The six parts of the METS package or document are as follows: header, descriptive metadata, administrative metadata, file section, structural map and behavior section. They are all optional except for the header and structural map, which are needed for basic access to the digital resource. The descriptive, administrative and behavior sections may reside in the METS document or be external. If they are internal, XML schemas are preferred. If the metadata for these sections is external and merely pointed to from the appropriate section of the METS document, the metadata may be of any type and format. For descriptive metadata it may even be an entry in a catalog if the catalog record can be adequately referenced.
The METS descriptive metadata section is the most familiar to librarians, as it contains cataloging and finding-aid data. There are several established schemas that can be used for the descriptive metadata including MODS, which was designed with a special focus on electronic resources; Dublin Core, when only minimal data is needed; or MARCXML when full MARC record information is available.
The administrative metadata is the most critical for use and preservation of the digital resource. Here resides source information such as resource creation date, resource format information, resource use information, digital provenance and copyright and license information. This section may contain information on past transformations and migrations of the data and master/derivative information, all useful for preservation purposes. XML schemas are not yet standard for most of this information but the METS project is pushing their development. For example, the recently completed NISO data dictionary for technical metadata for still images (www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39_87_trial_use.pdf) is being used through a supporting XML schema, MIX (Metadata Imagining in XML) (www.loc.gov/mix/). Project participants also have drafts prepared for the technical data for text, audio and moving images. The draft schemas are available from the METS website.
The behavior section of the METS document contains pointers to computer programs or applications that are used to display digital objects such as page-turners or audio players. The behavior information is intended to assist in providing "disseminators" for end user access.
The header, file group and structural map sections may only reside in the METS document there is no option to point to them outside. The file section identifies all the files the object clusters, such as thumbnails, master archival, pdf versions and text-encoded versions. The structural map contains a clear layout of the hierarchical structure of the document. An important feature of METS is that the structural map may point to parts of the descriptive and administrative metadata from different places on the structure hierarchy of the resource, enabling linking to subparts of digital resources, such as cuts on sound recordings. The header also gives information about the METS document itself, such as identifiers, date created, dates updated and status.
METS allows use of any established schemas for the different modules. While essential for acceptance in these times when standards are not yet in place, such flexibility could impede interoperability. Accordingly, the library community will be trying to work out a subset of schemas or profiles for the different types of data described above that will be used across exchange communities. This makes international participation in the use and development of METS especially important.
METS Implementation and Use
METS came at a key moment for implementation and use. Many institutions had experimented with digitization and had begun to build collections large enough to seriously require better organization tools. Also there has recently been an increasing number of projects for archiving of open access Web subsets. The recent METS implementations have fortunately varied in form of material and size, giving good information to the standard's developers. To indicate only a few projects, the Library of Congress is using METS for a very large body of moving image and audio material and other mixed media folk life resources; the National Library of Wales is using METS initially for textual material; Harvard is experimenting with audio collections; and Michigan State is working with moving images. Both OCLC and RLG are working METS into their digital projects.
The library community has well developed bibliographic description traditions that with some adjustment for digital resources, such as the MODS development exemplifies, will serve the digital future. In the larger metadata picture, the development of METS is a big step toward bringing to non-descriptive metadata the stability needed for a smoothly functioning Internet environment where electronic resources flow seamlessly between systems. These developments relate well to the OAIS (Open Archival Information System) Reference Model (www.ccsds.org/RP9905/RP9905.html), which helps to define the processes and boundaries in creating, managing, sustaining and serving digital resources. The METS package can be used to collect digital resource metadata for submission to the repository, serve as the place for the metadata within the repository and be the supplier of information to the tools that provide the resources to the patrons.
This article is based on one to appear in early 2003 in Portal: Libraries and the Academy, Johns Hopkins University Press.
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Information Science and Technology


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One of the first issues that a Linux user will run into when installing OpenSolaris is the fact that it does not support partitions inside an extended partition; if you install OpenSolaris on an extended partition, it will erase all the partitions inside it. This is important to mention, as many Linux distributions install inside extended partitions by default.
Related to this is OpenSolaris' file systen, ZFS. The Linux kernel does not have support for ZFS, and as such, if you want to exchange data between the two on the same machinem you'll have to use FUSE. The article erroneously states that this is because the FSF does not consider the CDDL "free enough", but the actual reason is that the CDDL is simply not compatible with the GPL. If the CDDL is not free enough, then neither is the GPL, as you could argue that the CDDL is less restrictive than the GPL.
The version of GRUB shipped with OpenSolaris has been modified to support booting ZFS partitions (obviously), but this support is not present in the GRUB versions shipped with Linux distributions. As such, it is important to note that if you install Linux after installing OpenSolaris, you need to make sure not to erase OpenSolaris' GRUB.
While Linux' hardware support is wider than that of OpenSolaris, the latter does benefit from having a static driver interface. Where in Linux hardware support might actually break as time goes by, 10 year old Solaris drivers will still work today. There's also a Device Detection Tool which will tell you if your hardware is compatible with OpenSolaris.
The article also details that OpenSolaris will run slower than comaprable Linux distributions, and that the number of applications to choose form is quite limited compared to what Linux distributions generally have to offer.
The article is an interesting read, and further details a number of OpenSolaris-specific features, such as ZFS and Zones.


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I admittedly love gadgets, but I can usually resist feeding the "I want to have it first" buying frenzy. I waited until the second generation Kindle came out before jumping onto the eReader train; despite my own predictions, I never bought an iPad even when it got a camera and last year, I gladly gave up my iPhone in order to go to an Android system. This month, with the purchase of Amazon's latest Kindle, The Fire, I have broken my "Never buy the first generation version" rule. For some reason, when the pre-order email arrived for the new Kindle Fire, I jumped all over that bad boy . . . all that iPad glittery fun for 1/3 of the price.
Could. Not. Resist.
A week in and, while not quite in LOVE, I am deeply in LIKE with Thunder Bunny 1969.
Ooops, did I just share the name of my Fire out loud?
Here is a quick review.
Like I said, I don't own an iPad or a Nook so I can't really do much in the way of making comparisons. I have used an iPad in the past and some of my best friends have are iPad users, so the obvious differences are that The Fire does not have a 3G option, Blue Tooth capabilities or a camera. When it comes right down to it, though, I just could never get myself to drop the $500-$800 even if it would raise apple cult street cred. Here are a few more reasons why I took The Fire leap after such a long time of tablet resistance.
- RELATIVE COST – While $199 plus the cost of a case is nothing to sneeze at, compared to $500-$800 for the iPad, this was a no-brainer. I have been itching to get some kind of tablet and since I am already so tied to the Kindle with my eLibrary, the cost was a huge motivating factor.
- REALISTIC USE – While I know that some of my friends do use their iPad for productivity and work, I am willing to bet that a vast majority of people use their iPad primarily for entertainment purposes: games, movies, social media and more games. The Kindle Fire does all of that: games, movies, social media . . . and did I mention that it was only $200.
- PORTABILITY – The Fire is about the size of a regular Kindle. It has a 7″ screen, but and is a little thicker than previous version. The best part is that it fits in most of my jacket pockets so I can take it out and about without looking like I am going to some meeting when in actuality I am going to sit in some cafe and play Words With Friends.
What I can offer are some generally impressions about the Kindle Fire in relation to the previous Kindles.
Differences I like:
- ANDROID – This is obviously the biggest change, going from a reader only system to an android operating system. This allows for the system to surf the web, download apps, watch videos, etc.
- COLOR – Unlike previous versions, The Fire has a color screen and is back-lit when reading. I have not decided how the long-term comfort will be with the back-lit screen, but totally digging on the color.
- NAVIGATION – The touch screen is easy to use with little to any learning curve in order to being using The Fire. Like the iPad this is a machine that you just pick up and start using.
- EASE OF SET-UP – What set up? If you ordered it via your Amazon account it shows up charged and registered to your account. Apps that you have on your Android phone that are compatible with The Fire magically show up and all of your books are ready to be downloaded onto The Fire.
Differences I don't like:
- FOLDERS – One of the best parts about previous Kindles when the ability to place books into folders. As it stands now, The Fire allows you organize "favorites" on your shelf, but they are still all displayed as individual icons. I would love to put them in a folder of some sort.
- BATTERY LIFE – I have not really tested the battery life, but it seems like it lasts about
2-34-5 hours of actual use. The previous Kindles, again a less robust operating system, lasted for days.
- BLOG READING – The Fire does not support Blog subscriptions, so I'll just have to trust that my blog is being published. Yes, you can still get them via the web browser, but it's not the same.
- WHISPER SYNC – The best part of the older Kindles was waking up in the morning to see that my paper had already been downloaded and it was ready to read. The Fire requires you to download each edition each day via it's WiFi-only connectivity.
- More apps for The Fire: Spotify, Google apps, etc.
- Integration of Amazon's Cloud Services: music, photos, etc.
- Use of Fire for productivity and work:
- Please feel free to ask me any questions if you have 'em.


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Award-winning Israeli playwright Motti Lerner is coming to Toronto for the North American première of his play Deceived as produced by the Teatron Toronto Jewish Theatre Company.
Deceived tells the story of Jonathan Pollard, the American civilian intelligence analyst who was convicted for spying for Israel and has been in prison since 1985. It runs Nov. 9 to 20 at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, Studio Theatre, 5040 Yonge St.
"The play explores the question of why the Israelis agreed to use Pollard even though they had a strict rule against operating spies in their home countries so as not to create issues of antisemitism or dual loyalty," Lerner told The CJN in a brief phone interview last week.
"It deals with the period of his spying and the period when he was caught, and in retrospect, questions why he's still in jail," he continued, adding that he would dearly like to see him freed. "I don't think he did the right thing when he decided to spy, but on the other hand, he shouldn't die in jail," he said. "He's served for 26 years, and the punishment is becoming disproportionate to the crime."
Ticket prices to Deceived range from $19 (preview) to $48. Call 416-781-5527 or visit www.teatrontheatre.com
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Rendezvous With Madness: Sounds like a crazy theme for a film festival, but the 19th annual Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival runs Nov. 4 to 12 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox and other locations. Films include Baderech Lemalla (The Way Up), a recent Israeli-made feature from director Shirly Berkovitz about a woman fighting her addictions and rebuilding her life in the back streets of Tel Aviv; and Latzuf (Floating), from Israeli director Inbal Gibrolter, about a binge eater and an anorexic, both female, who share a hospital room in a clinic where they jointly rebel against their treatment. Sunday, Nov. 6, 1 and 3 p.m. respectively. There are many other worthy screenings. www.rendezvouswithmadness.com
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Films Explore Jewish-Muslim Relations: The theme of the 11th annual International Diaspora Film Festival is "wave of change," with films reflecting global political, social and cultural changes of the past year. Film director Deepa Mehta screens her acclaimed film Bollywood-Hollywood; and some "Pallywood" films are included as well, direct from the Gaza Women Film Festival.
"Can Muslims and Jews ever be friends?" seems to be the question asked in several of the films. David, a Toronto première, is the story of a young Muslim boy who is mistaken as a Jew by the Jewish community of Brooklyn. Kaddish for a Friend, directed by Leo Khasin, focuses on a teenage Palestinian in Berlin who develops an unlikely friendship with a Holocaust survivor.
Another selection is Playoff, by Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis, about a friendship between an Israeli basketball coach and a Muslim Turkish woman in 1970s Germany. The festival runs Nov. 1 to 6. www.diasporafilmfest.com
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Names in the News: The Koffler Centre enjoyed a wonderful success with its one-day series of readings and events at the International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront on Oct. 23. The events were well attended and the final session, a conversation among Russian-Jewish authors Gal Beckerman, David Bezmozgis and Gary Shteyngart, was sold out with some 200 people in attendance.
Koffler at the IFOA also involved such literary talents as Montreal-area MP and human rights activist Irwin Cotler and translators Michal Govrin and Peter Filkins. "It worked out very well, and we're hoping to continue it next year," said Koffler publicist Tony Hewer.
* * *
Arts in Brief
• The Canadian Opera Company's Xstrata Ensemble Studio conducts a tour of Ontario elementary schools this month to perform Isis and the Seven Scorpions by Canadian composer Dean Burry and a version of Hansel and Gretel, the fairy-tale opera by Engelbert Humperdinck. The company visits Bialik Hebrew Day School on Nov. 16.
• Shoshana Shier Lecture Series presents Paris visiting professor Jean Baumgarten giving the last in a series of talks about Mystical Texts in Old Yiddish Literature. On Nov. 7, at 5 p.m., the topic is "Echoes of the False Messiah – Shabbetai Tzvi in Old Yiddish Literature." University College, Room A101, 15 King's College Circle. Free, everyone welcome.
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Out of Town: The Free Thinking Society of Ottawa holds its second annual film festival Nov. 11 to 13 to celebrate liberty, freedom and democracy. It sponsors three major events, two panel discussions and some 20 films, including the Canadian première of Unmasked: Judeophobia and the Threat to Civilization. The film is a documentary about the current political assault against Israel – "fundamentally a war against the Jewish People and their right to self-determination."
Other films include Justice for Sergei; The Last Jews of Libya; The Making of a Martyr; The Biases of the CBC; and Ahead of Time – The Ruth Gruber Story. Events take place at Library and Archives Canada and the Bronson Centre, Ottawa. www.freethinkingfilmfest.ca


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Natalie Cole: An Unforgettable Dream House
The singer recalls the English Tudor home her dad, Nat King Cole, bought in 1948 in a predominantly white section of Los Angeles—triggering a wave of racial hostility but a childhood of fond memories
Singer Natalie Cole, 64, has won nine Grammys. Two previously unreleased duets recorded with her father and sister Carole in 1954 are included in a new two-CD set, "The Extraordinary Nat King Cole" (Capitol), due out June 3. She spoke with reporter Marc Myers.
The house where I grew up in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles was like a dream—even though my family faced threats after my father bought it in August 1948. At the time, many homeowners in white areas of Los Angeles refused to sell to blacks and other...


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Don't look for updates on Jennifer Love Hewitt's pregnancy on Twitter.
The mom-to-be has called it quits on the social networking site, citing the "negativity" she's experienced as her reason for signing off.
PHOTOS: See Jennifer Love Hewitt's growing baby bump
"Unfortunately with all the negativity people choose to send on twitter as well as threats to their own well being," Hewitt tweeted Wednesday. "I'm sad to say twitter is no longer for me. I have enjoyed all the kindness and love that came my way, as well as support. But this break is needed."
"Life should be filled with positivity and holding each other up, not making threats and sending bad vibes. To those of you who made it a joy, Thank you from the bottom of my heart."
"The Client List" star announced her pregnancy and engagement to costar Brian Hallisay recently, saying in a statement, "This is a wonderful time and we are looking forward to starting our family together."
PHOTOS: Pregnant stars hit the carpet


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CRESTVIEW � City Council President Robyn Helt, saying taxpayers shouldn't be expected to "make up the slack" if the city can't live within its means, has offered a proposal for a balanced budget.
CRESTVIEW � City Council President Robyn Helt, saying taxpayers shouldn't be expected to "make up the slack" if the city can't live within its means, has offered a proposal for a balanced budget.
Helt's plan, presented during a Monday budget workshop, would come at the expense of four police officer positions funded by a Justice Department Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, grant.
Retaining the policemen would cost the city $194,960. Helt said the city had made no plans to fund the positions when the 2010 three-year grant expires this fall.
If integrated into departments' budgets and approved by the council, Helt's proposal would fund Police Chief Tony Taylor�s request to move his department's dispatch center from P.J. Adams Parkway to police headquarters in the Whitehurst Municipal Building.
It would also fund Taylor's CPD accreditation efforts; Library Director Jean Lewis' request for $20,000 in patron computer upgrades and $25,000 for book acquisition; and $74,843 to cover a small portion of backlogged street repaving.
In addition, Helt's plan would erase the current deficit in preliminary budget proposals, which department heads have whittled down to 533,000, while avoiding a millage rate increase.
Funding sources
Funding would come from a combination of budget savings, including no longer asking taxpayers to pay $276,988 for city employee dependent health insurance.
Other funds would come from not providing new funds for the four COPS-funded police officers and implementing a 5 percent increase in water rates.
By city ordinance, water rates should be reviewed annually, but haven't been in 14 years, Helt said.
Ongoing streetmaintenance should include paving 5 miles of city roads annually on a 20-year rotating schedule, but less than a mile has been paved this fiscal year due to funding cuts.
Councilman Shannon Hayes criticized the suggestion that city workers would have to pay for dependents' health insurance.
Helt sympathized with them, but pointed out that many taxpayers have also had to shoulder their own families' insurance costs and shouldn't also have to fund those of city workers' families.
"Did I lose another four positions tonight?" Taylor asked at the end of the meeting.
Helt said though her proposal includes not picking up funding for the expiring COPS grant, nothing was definite and she was open to further suggestions.
"We can't always make decisions that make people popular," Helt said. "I'm not in a popularity contest. I'm here to do a job."
Want to go?
The next City Council budget workshop will be 3 p.m. Aug. 28 at City Hall. Council members encourage residents� input.
Contact News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes at 850-682-6524 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnbBrian.


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Denim & Supply — Ralph Lauren's offshoot line and slightly grungy, bohemian-chic answer to RL's American classics — has a year-round, raging case of cutting-edge meets casual-cozy. But judging by the range seen in its latest lookbook, all signs point to outfitting vintage fiends for snowed-in get-togethers this holiday season.
In men and women's separates, D&S offers all elements of the free spirit's style guide to warm, winter dressing. Think: threadbare flannels, distressed denim, and stacked bracelets. But while there are still some chunky knits, tidy button-downs, and D-ring belt buckles to satisfy even the steadiest blue blood, it's the pieces like the drummer's jacket and a very Lou Doillon-esque top hat that really seals the sentiment of this lookbook. It's clear: You can still look good curled up on the couch.
Ready to decap that Kahlua? If you're not in the mood for a D&S-dressed snow date after our slideshow, try polishing off a White Russian — you'll be ready to get cute and comfy in no time!


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Khleo (Soulja Boy's SODMG New Artist) - Feel Good Music [In House Performance]
Soulja Boys New Artist - Khleo - FEEL GOOD MUSIC -
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Lancaster Super Speedway, which capped its points races last week with the final points races of the 2014 season, will not be racing Saturday night, Oct. 4.
LSS, in its 60th season of dirt track racing, is taking off the weekend off.
Veteran driver Pebo Johnson captured an exciting Super Street win to highlight action at Lancaster Super Speedway on Saturday, Sept. 28.
The Super Street front row had Andrew Baker and Steve Hinson, and at the green flag, Hinson, Baker, Johnson and Cody Baucom roared into turn one battling for the lead.
The Lancaster Super Speedway caps its points races for the 2014 season Saturday, Sept. 27.
Lancaster will continue racing after the points are over Saturday night at the half-mile oval.
It was Baker night at Lancaster Super Speedway as Brandy Baker captured the win in SECA Crate Late Models and Pro Street, while his son, Andrew Baker, captured the Super Street Division win.
In the SECA Crate Late Model main event, Benji Knight and Brandy Baker were on the front row.
Lancaster Super Speedway points races are winding down for the 2014 season, with numerous divisions in close races for the respective championships.
The SECA Crate Late Models, slated to return at Lancaster Super Speedway last Saturday – September 13, will be at LSS this Saturday.
The SECA Crate Late Models will be returning to the big half-mile of Lancaster Super Speedway along with the Rear Wheel Drive 4-Cylinder Division Saturday night, Sept. 13.
The SECA Crate Late Models will be qualifying Saturday night.
Jeff Knight highlighted action at Lancaster Super Speedway, taking the Super Street main event Saturday night, Sept. 6.
Knight and Justus Harrington were on the front row. When the green flag fell, Knight, Andrew Baker and James Marion roared into turn one battling for the lead.
The Late Models Division (Limited, 525, Crates combine) make their return to Lancaster Super Speedway on Saturday, Sept. 6 with a $200 bonus going to the highest finishing SECA Crate Late Model.
David Laney rallied at the end to win the M&M Garage Extreme 4 $1,000 race at Lancaster Super Speedway on Saturday, Aug. 30.
Mel Privette and Steven Self were on the front row for the feature.
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The Lancaster News is your source for local news, sports, events, and information in Lancaster County and Lancaster, South Carolina, and the surrounding area..


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13.8 pounds down! =)Wednesday, May 29th, 2013
…and 36.2 to go! Not 50 lbs anymore, but 36.2!!!! That's music to my ears & eyes. I keep thinking "just 7 more pounds and it'll ONLY be 20 something to go". Woah, that's amazing because I thought there for a while back early this year that The damned weight would never come off. It hung on for so long without budging a bit. I have to admit that I probably was eating just enough too much, here and there, to jeopardize any progress I could have made.
Just a weekend party and the snack sneaking that comes hand in hand with booze probably screwed me. I can't get away with too many extras at my age. My body wants to pack it on and then hangs on for dear life! Traitor body! Doh!
I don't know if this is coincidence, or not, but I've been eating a lot more Greek yogurt lately and the weight seems to be repelled by the yogurt. I shovel it into myself and the pounds retreat to who cares where! All bow to the great and mighty yogurt! 😆 I like it with granola or muesli on top and that's what my snacks have been for the most part, and what I eat at night if I'm really wanting to eat something. Whatever it is that's going on, I'll take it! Just keep doing what I'm doing…trying to get the most (bulk)food into me with the least amount of calories. White fish, or chicken. A shit ton of veggies. That's a meal I have every day. I have a new bbq sauce that I'm addicted to (Presidents Choice Apple Butter BBQ sauce) and it tastes delicious on either chicken, or fish. It has some sweet flavor which I find pretty darned appealing. I just slather it sparingly over the meat right in the pan and throw some tin foil over as a cover and let it bake right on the stove top. Deelish!!! I've been steaming butternut squash, mashing it up and mixing it in with my steamed veggies and diced protein in one big bowl…it's a lot of food, and I'm so stuffed, yet it not a high calorie meal. I have a little low calorie olive oil margarine tossed with the stir fry veggies, too.
I don't worry about the sugars in the yogurt except I won't buy any that have 20 or more grams. That's the best I can do,,,zero, or low fat & enjoy the rest. 🙂
I try to limit my fruit to 2 pieces, apple,banana, etc. daily. I have a little wiggle room on everything because I don't want to fixate on precision. That's just effing not my style. So if it works don't fuck with it, right?
Gawd but I've been a busy chick lately. Working very hard leaves no legs left under me to work out, or run. I fall into bed exhausted and I even slept in this morning to 7 o'clock. That's not the norm for me. I'm usually up 5, 5:30 and I don't even have to be! I just wake up and sleep is over.
I'm looking forward to morning workouts with sis-in-law maybe as soon as by the end of this week. I'm especially hankering to go for a run, but not on the legs I got under me tonight. They are tired to death. I will feed them Greek yogurt and tylenol.
….I should test the comments….hope it's back to normal…. fingers crossed…


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There are many affordable third-party tools available to assist you with SQL Server database backup and recovery operations. A new entry into the market is Acronis Recovery for MS SQL Server. Although Acronis Recovery is Acronis' first product dedicated to SQL Server, the company has a great deal of experience in the enterprise backup and recovery market. Let's explore Acronis Recovery's features and functionality and see if it's a worthy competitor in the crowded SQL Server backup and recovery market.
Set Up
Installing Acronis Recovery is straightforward and can even be scripted. The product includes a management tool, Acronis Recovery for MS SQL Server Management Console, which can be installed on the server itself or on another server to allow for remote management, as well as an agent that must be deployed to each server that contains a SQL Server instance that will be managed by Acronis Recovery. After the agent has been installed, two services, Acronis Remote Agent and Acronis Scheduler2, reside on the server. By default, Acronis Remote Agent runs under NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService and Acronis Scheduler2 runs under the Local System account, which could present a security risk in some environments because Acronis Recovery lets OS-level scripts run. It would be nice if Acronis Recovery included the functionality to customize these services to be more secure out of the box.
Acronis Recovery integrates with SQL Server through standard Microsoft APIs, such as the Virtual Device Interface (VDI) for making proper SQL Server backups and ODBC for application connectivity. For those of you with failover clusters, it's important to note that Acronis Recovery isn't cluster aware, so this product might not be the right choice for you. However, you can install and use Acronis Recovery on a clustered instance of SQL Server.
You can use one of Acronis Recovery's wizards to migrate your existing maintenance plans from SQL Server. However, the migration wizard doesn't migrate SQL Server Agent jobs; if you use that tool for backup, you'll have to recreate your backups in Acronis Recovery.
Product Features
When it comes to features, Acronis Recovery is loaded. It provides the ability to compress and encrypt backups, clean up old backups, and run OS-level scripts before and after backup or restore operations. The product also includes wizards that can help you create backup strategies and assist with recovery/restoration operations. Other Acronis Recovery features include scheduled restores, a software development kit for developer integration, and a wizard that can help you develop a disaster recovery plan–a real benefit for small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs).
Figure 1 shows the main screen of Acronis Recovery's management console. The options are self-explanatory, and overall, the product's wizards are easy and intuitive to use. However, Acronis Recovery doesn't include a command-line interface or a way to integrate directly with SQL Server via T-SQL (which most of its competitors provide as a standard feature). So if you're more of a scripting DBA, Acronis Recovery poses challenges for you in its current version. Acronis needs to address this limitation in future versions because many DBAs prefer to write scripts and use SQL Server Agent jobs to perform certain tasks.
Backups and Restores
Acronis Recovery supports all of the standard SQL Server backup types (i.e., full, differential, file groups, transaction log). In addition to backing up SQL Server databases to disk, Acronis Recovery lets you back up data to tapes, tape libraries, Acronis Backup Server, and network shares. The product also includes the Set Rolling Snapshots option, which creates snapshots automatically.
Compression ratios for Acronis Recovery backup files and backup speed are similar to other SQL Server backup products. Acronis Recovery provides five levels of compression, and backups can be encrypted up to Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256. You can also change the backup priority to ensure that Acronis Recovery will have little to no affect on other processes running on your SQL Server. Although Acronis Recovery's backup functionality worked flawlessly, the biggest problem with this version of the product is that there's no way to customize the name of the backup files that are generated. The default backup filename is fairly cryptic (e.g., 2008_02_23_18_08_17_343S.TIB). Being able to customize the backup name is a requirement for many organizations.
I really like that Acronis Recovery lets you schedule restores, a feature that's missing from other backup utilities. Because backups can be copied to network locations, they can be used by multiple SQL Server instances. Scheduling periodic restores is important if you're looking to perform such tasks to refresh a development environment with new versions of production data. However, I wish Acronis had implemented this feature differently. Because each backup has a unique name, you can't rely on a consistent backup filename unless you rename the file outside of Acronis Recovery. At that point, you might as well restore the database manually each time a full backup is made.
Despite the potential security risk I mentioned earlier, the ability to run OS-level commands before and after backup or restore operations is nice, especially if non-DBAs want to perform scriptable tasks such as an application upgrade. It would be nice if future versions of Acronis Recovery integrated directly with SQL Server to provide the ability run T-SQL scripts and OS scripts.
Acronis Recovery doesn't offer a tool to convert its backups to standard SQL Server backups, unlike many of its competitors' products that have their own backup file formats. The use of a proprietary backup file format shouldn't be a problem as long as the product is supported in your environment; however, that means that Acronis Recovery must to be installed wherever you want to restore the backup, including in development environments. In addition, having a proprietary backup file format could cause problems in the future if no one has access to the Acronis Recovery installation and you need to restore a database.
I was disappointed to find that Acronis Recovery was often sluggish. I tested the product in both virtual and physical environments, as well as on standalone and clustered implementations of SQL Server; however, performance remained the same. In addition, I found that managing backups on multiple SQL Server instances might prove to be challenging in large enterprises with hundreds or thousands of SQL Server instances because Acronis Recovery's management console doesn't provide a treeview for drilling into multiple instances at once. Instead, you must connect to each SQL Server instance individually.
Despite its shortcomings, Acronis Recovery is a solid first release from an established backup and recovery vendor. However, as I mentioned throughout the article, Acronis needs to do more to put this product on par with its competitors' products. For SMBs that don't like to use SQL Server Management Studio to perform backups or have many inexperienced DBAs on their staff, Acronis Recovery is a good candidate, especially if you already use Acronis products in your organization. Although HyperBac's HyperBac for SQL Server would still be my choice for backing up and restoring SQL Server databases because it integrates seamlessly with SQL Server (despite its lack of a GUI), Acronis Recovery is certainly worth a look if you're in the market for a new backup utility.
Acronis Recovery for MS SQL Server