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TAMPA, Fla—This is the hometown of U.S. Special Operations Command, at nearby MacDill Air Force Base. This headquarters dispatches our military's special operators — Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — on missions in the most difficult and dangerous places on earth. It's also the place where "action officers" are burning the midnight oil — but not necessarily planning new targets for our Navy SEALs. Apparently, a "good number" of SOCOM's staff members are busy preparing responses to the batches of inquiries about what really happened in Benghazi, Libya, before, during and after the terror attack on the night of Sept. 11-12 that resulted in four dead Americans. Answers have been slow in coming.
Three days after the assault, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the FBI would investigate the attack as a criminal matter, not as an act of war. For reasons left to our imagination, the FBI didn't move fast enough, so the Obama administration appointed a special review board to develop a "full picture" of all that transpired at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.
This accountability review board is being co-chaired by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering and retired Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Investigating the murder of a U.S. diplomat is an assignment for which Pickering is uniquely suited. When he was Ronald Reagan's ambassador to El Salvador in the 1980s, Pickering was targeted for assassination. As a consequence of the threat, enhanced security measures were put in place to protect him. Apparently, no such steps were taken to safeguard Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and his fellow diplomats in Libya. In the absence of answers, one can only wonder why.
The Pickering-Mullen panel supposedly will aggregate information received from SOCOM, European Command, Africa Command, the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, the CIA, other intelligence organizations, and the State Department. If the White House is to be believed, the review board will produce a "rigorous" report when its "investigation is complete" and "hold accountable" anyone who "didn't do their job."
At the glacial rate things are moving, we may not know what really happened that terrible night in Benghazi until well after President Barack Obama's second inauguration. Maybe that's the idea. But if members of the O-Team believe that the questions are going to go away just because he won re-election, they're wrong.
On election eve, the president claimed, "Four years after I took office, America's respect and resolve around the world is unquestioned." Yet just hours later, Osama bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahri, in a propaganda broadcast to radical Islamists in Somalia, said, "[The United States is] defeated in Iraq, and they are withdrawing from Afghanistan, and their ambassador in Benghazi was killed, and the flags of their embassies were lowered in Cairo and Sanaa." Now Fox News journalists Jennifer Griffin and Catherine Herridge and a handful of others have uncovered facts that point to a possible cover-up.
Thanks to their intrepid digging for the truth, we now know that a classified cable from Aug. 16 detailed vulnerabilities at the Benghazi facility that were identified by the State Department's regional security officer — the official responsible for protecting diplomatic posts in North Africa. We also know that six weeks before the attack, Stevens requested additional host-nation security protection from Libya's Foreign Ministry. And we know for certain that on the night of the attack, U.S. diplomats and CIA personnel in Benghazi begged for help that never came.
What we don't know is what — if anything — officials in Washington did about any of these and a host of other problems leading up to and during this debacle. Why, for example, was our ambassador in Benghazi — without a security detail — on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks?
During a series of military assaults over more than seven hours against the consulate compound and a CIA facility about a mile away, at least two unarmed unmanned aerial vehicles and other sensors broadcast live imagery of the attacks to command centers in Washington. According to unnamed administration officials, there were no U.S. military forces or assets available to respond to pleas for help from the Americans fighting for their lives. But there are other reports of U.S. aircraft — and armed UAVs — that could have been dispatched to the scene. What's the truth?
The so-called mainstream media all but ignored the disaster in Benghazi in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 6 election. Our enemies now gloat that America's "awe is lost" and that our "might is gone." Members of both parties in Congress are finally demanding answers. They are right to do so.
The urgency to find out what happened in Benghazi is neither prurient nor political. An officer assigned here at SOCOM told me this week, "Everything that could go wrong in Benghazi did." That may be just one officer's opinion, but if it's even half right, the facts need to be known now so steps can be taken to reduce the likelihood of its ever happening again.
Washington Times


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The year was 1983: The U.S. invaded Grenada. A gallon of gas cost 96 cents. Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video premiered. That year was also the last time that Social Security recipients saw a cost-of-living increase steeper than the one just announced for 2022. This year, Social Security benefits will rise 5.9 percent, the sharpest upsurge since 1983's 7.4 percent jump.
Cost-of-living increases are tied to the consumer price index, and rising inflation rates and gas prices caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic mean Social Security recipients will get a large boost in 2022. The 5.9 percent increase dwarfs last year's 1.3 percent rise, and over the past decade hikes have averaged just 1.65 percent. The average monthly benefit of $1,565 in 2021 will go up by $92 a month to $1,657 a month for an individual beneficiary, or $19,884 yearly.
The cost-of-living change also affects the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax, which will grow from $142,800 to $147,000.
For 2022, the monthly federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payment standard will be $841 for an individual and $1,261 for a couple.
Part of the increase will be eaten up by higher Medicare Part B premiums, however. The standard monthly premium for Medicare Part B enrollees has not been announced yet, but it is projected to rise $10 a month to $158.30. And the 5.9 percent Social Security increase may not be enough for seniors to keep pace with rising health care and prescription drug costs.
"You're glad that you get a 5.9 percent increase, but it doesn't feel like you're getting 5.9 percent when all of your other costs are going up much higher," said Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works.
Most beneficiaries will be able to find out their specific cost-of-living adjustment online by logging on to my Social Security in December 2021. While you can still receive your increase notice by mail, you have the option to get the notice online instead.
For more on the 2022 Social Security benefit levels, click here.

subset: commoncrawl


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Men's wear
Women's wear
Health & wellness
Valid upto
July 10, 2025, midnight
Jan. 1, 2027, midnight
Nov. 30, 2029, midnight
People have used these cosmetics for thousands of years. It is a famous women's accessory. 90% of women keep makeup kits and other cosmetics in their handbags and wallets. According to researchers, cosmetics are capable of causing dramatic alterations in a person's face. They also aid in concealing flaws and enhancing a person's appearance. Best deals in Cosmetics and beauty products may assist a person in improving their look in a very positive manner. ...read more
Cosmetics, their application, and the brands sold in our shop's Makeup kits assist in concealing any flaws. Makeup foundations hide stress marks and imperfections, including dark spots, for a more attractive appearance. These are colored items that may be used to improve your appearance.
At Ginbox, makeup kits range from lipstick to mascara, eyeliner, blush, and eye shadow. In this market, anti-aging creams are also quite popular. Women nowadays are so preoccupied with their daily lives that they don't have time to stand in front of the mirror and groom themselves. If you're one of them, Ginbox can assist you in purchasing cosmetics online from the most influential brands, like Loreal, Faces, Lakme, Maybelline, Dermatologica, and many more, at low prices.
Makeup on the eyes has always been a big part of my routine. Makeup such as eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick, as well as face powder, may assist you in achieving a fairer and more accentuated appearance. Lipstick may help you to define your lip shapes and volumes. Rouge, blush, and nail paint are among the other beauty goods. The use of these beauty products may improve your natural look.
Cosmetics also assist individuals in achieving a knowledgeable and confident appearance. Select the most appropriate option for you. If you're going to a party or a casual gathering, make sure you're dressed to impress. You'll discover all of the colors and tints you need at Ginbox.
So, whether you're searching for something to wear to a festival or for everyday wear, Ginbox has plenty of deals on beauty product options. There are several brands of cosmetics available. All you have to do is specify the one you want, and the item will be delivered directly to your door. You may browse the goods, choose the one you need, and add it to your basket while traveling on the subway or sitting at home on a wet day. It would be delivered to your specified address by shoppersstop.com. If you can pick these goods up quickly before they run out of stock, it will be helpful to you.
Answer:- Ginbox is the best site to buy beauty products at a discount.
Answer:- It may seem like maintaining a skincare regimen is difficult, but it does not have to be. You may stick to the Ginbox regimen. First, cleanse your face with a gentle cleanser, tone it with an alcohol-free toner before applying a nourishing moisturizer.
Answer:- You must protect your skin from the sun's damaging rays in addition to following the wash, tone, and moisturize skincare program. Go with Beauty Products offers in Oradea, Romania through Ginbox. read less
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Natural Garnet Ring, Rose Gold plated Sterling Silver Ring, 5-Stone Georgian Victorian Jewelry Design#D19
Please Note: Our rose gold jewelry is rose gold plating over sterling silver unless it is marked as 10k or 14k gold.
Natural Red Garnet 5-Gem Georgian Rose Gold plated Sterling Silver Ring
Georgian #D19
Inspired by Georgian and Edwardian designs, this stunning Antique reproduction is hand-crafted in rose gold plated sterling silver. This gorgeous ring is set with lovely natural gems. The 5 stunning full cut gemstones array the gorgeous setting which is 6mm North to South on the finger; the gems are approximately 1-2ctw. The inside of the band is marked 925 for sterling silver.
Notice the beautiful craftsmanship of the rose gold over silver filigree setting and band. This is an exquisite rendition of an antique filigree ring. The tiny swirls accent each side of the band, and the stones sparkle across the top of the band. This amazing ring is classically beautiful and will be a highlight of your jewelry collection.
Yes, items can be engraved, 8 characters or less for a small $5 fee. Make a note at checkout and we will invoice you the difference and update your order. Or go to https://silverembracejewelry.com/products/engraving-upgrade
Add the engraving to your cart with a note at checkout for the engraving. Please note: engraved items cannot be returned.
Can I get a size not listed?
Our sizes range from size 4-10 (US). All rings can be made in these sizes. Other designs may have size limits. If your size is not listed as a choice please contact us or leave a note a checkout with your size preference. Email; firstname.lastname@example.com or email@example.com
Can I have a different color stone?
All our items are handcrafted, so we can change orders to suit your fancy. If you would rather a different simulated or even a natural stone, we can usually accommodate these requests. Of course, there is a price difference for natural stones, and they are not always available, but we do try. Please note that any customized item is not eligible for return.
I want this in 14k gold, is that an option?
Yes, we can make any item in 10k or 14k gold. Choose from white gold or rose gold - even yellow gold can be done.
All of the above requests can be made in a note at checkout, and we will invoice you for any price differences. You can also email me for more information; email@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com
Shipping & Tracking information
What is the Shipping time frame?
All our items are handcrafted to order so please allow 12 to 16 business days (approximately 2.5 to 3 weeks) for the planning, production, polishing, packaging, and processing of your order. Three days after your order is placed your jewelry will begin the casting process. For this reason, we do not like to cancel orders after three (3) days time. Once an item is finished, your jewelry will be packed with great care to be shipped to you.
Do you send Tracking?
Yes! We ship all items with tracking information, and we send the tracking information automatically to you. If you are in a hurry, you can upgrade shipping at checkout. Add insurance at checkout for extra protection of your items. Please remember we cannot control the postal service; shipping times may vary.
Refunds & Exchanges
We accept returns in most cases. Please see our refund and exchange policy page for details.


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©2024 Yantai Hualian Steel Structure Co., Ltd All Rights Reserved. 鲁ICP备15045077号
Hualian Steel Structure
Hualian Steel Structure
T6 type Stair Treads bolted fixing with anti-slip nosing
1) Classification:
According to whether the nosing to be used and methods of mounting to stringers, grating treads are classified into eight types, expressed as T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, T8.
Belowing is the introduction of T6 type stair tread steel grating which is bolted fixing with anti-slip nosing.
2) T6 Type Stair Tread Material:
Mild Steel (Low CaTbon Steel) or Stainless Steel
3) Types of Steel Grating for T6 Type Stair Tread:
Flat type: the most widely steel grating.
Serrated type: With better no-slip.
"I" type:On the surface,path and items not in the same flat.With the character of light weight,economic and practical.
4) T6 Type Stair Tread Surface Treatment:
Untreated, Painting ,Powder coated or Hot dip Galvanizing
5) Steel grating standards:
A) China: YB/T4001-1998
D) Australia: AS1657-1988
E) Japan: JJS.
6) Package & loading:
Packed in bundle then fixed by steel belt as the general export package and we also could pack it according to customers' requirement.
7) Our Service:
We can design the shop drawings according to custiomer's structural drawings.
We can provide samples if you need.
We can offer customized service as customer's per requirements.
Feel free to contact with me for cooperation:
contact person:Amber Wu
Phone/whatsapp: +86 18562239900
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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I have been thinking about ugg boots all winter. Firstly they are an Australian thing, and secondly they are so snuggly warm. I have seen crocheted cowboy boots, ice skates and converse so I figured that Aussie uggs would be the thing for me to design in crochet.
The Ugg boot is an Australian icon, and is traditionally made from 100% sheepskin and fleece. Because the real uggs are made of wool I prefer to crochet these in pure Australian wool to achieve the woolly warmth. This is a quality yarn that is grown and spun in Australia. Nothing can surpass the real thing, but these booties are a bit of fun.
I love pure Australian wool but it doesn't come cheap, even here downunder. This is a patons natural country wool which is so beautiful to work with and deliciously soft and warm.
The picture below shows my trusty uggies which I have loved every winter for about the last 25 years!I love my uggies! This is a more classic style and the one I based my design on. Ugg slippers are basically 2 bits of sheepskin wacked together.
An American company recently trademarked the word "Ugg Australia", hence restricting the use of these words by traditional Australian Ugg manufacturers. They were subsequently taken to court by a group of Australians who strenuously objected to this action.
Not only did the US company take the words "Ugg Australia", but were also having the boots made in China. Nothing too Australian about that! This caused huge uproar here as Uggs have been arround for decades. It was only when some of the Hollywood types started being seen in them did the overseas market take an interest in them. I have always owned at least one pair. I also have a pair of knee highs which I bought last year in Melbourne.
The history of the ugg boot is an interesting one.
The sensitivity of a US company trademarking the works Ugg Australia, was such that senior politicians were reported as saying "we should tell the yanks to bugger off".
It was declared that the word Ugg is a generic word in Australia referring to woolen boots and as such can't be trademarked. Ugg boots have been around since the Second World War and were popular in the 60s and 70s for surfers. They were considered bogan until their recent raise to fame.
These are my original designs based on the classic Aussie Ugg. Please leave your comments on whether I should write the pattern out.
Thanks for looking.


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Miss t.erner // 4 Years Now!
beeah–music BEH012 / CD / 14.12.2012
# | Title | Time |
1. | Starship | 5:14 |
2. | Pawn In A Game | 5:50 |
3. | A Part | 6:57 |
4. | What We Are | 5:56 |
Berlin two piece Miss t.erner conjure up an ethereal atmosphere on their debut "4YEARS NOW!" EP and create an emotional journey into their unique sound. Moving between shadow and light, this sound-acoustic marriage combines the considerable talents of the Berlin based producer and song writer Mr. Terner with the lovely voice of Miss T from Sweden.
"4YEARS NOW!" links four remarkable pieces the duo has been working on over the last four years. By layering acoustic and electronic sounds they create a dynamic setup of songs that are so rich in details that you will discover something new every time they are played.
The first track "Starship" is a stunning composition with ever-so-tender vocals hovering alluringly over a refined piano section. The repeated lyric "I try so hard, that it breaks my heart" will be echoing around your head for hours after several listens.
With a prelude of drum fireworks, the second number "Pawn In A Game" is a groovy melancholia that ends up as a powerful track. With its throbbing bassline, elysian synths and voices that rise like sirens, coolly but urgently, "Pawn In A Game" hits the emotional nerve with razor precision.
Next up is "Apart", an elegy about love and friendship and a missive to the collective unconsciousness of the world at large. The newcomers shoot this very personal statement across the bow of contemporary music. "Make me feel a part", it shouts from the background like a rallying call for something better, while an epic soundtrack is building and rolling slowly underneath it. A song for a disaffected but impassioned generation, "Apart" is as nuanced and unique as the artists and label behind it.
"What We Are" is the well rounded coda. Miss T.erner take us to a hopeful and happy place, the perfect finishing point for this emotional journey. "Gold the moon appears", whilst quivering chimes arouse a sound which hides behind the feeling that is evoked once it penetrates your ears. "This is what we are for", the voices playing with each other's heights and depths make you lose track on who is who.
Miss t.erner bring together a combination of unique musical voices that stretch beyond traditional genres to leave you with a sense of wanting more.
Berlin two piece miss t.erner conjure up an ethereal atmosphere on their debut track Starship that would bring James Blake out in a cold sweat.
– Crack In The Road
Lovely EP - combining dreamy vocals and warm harmonies with subtle downbeat. Like their groovy melancholy, "Pawn in a Game" is a powerful track.
– PlanetInterview
WhatWeAre... Just wow. It´s a doozie track with a massiv bass groove!
– DJ Cup of Jazz
Our new favorite tune is Pawn in the Game - a sound that is legere and deep. The vocals are equally warm and distant, creating a perfect harmony a subtle ambiguity as regards content. We want more of Miss t.erner.
– Perret Schaad (Fashion Berlin)
YES! Admire the architecture and the music is using it. Great atmosphere filled with so much heart and love. I like it!
– Director Jan Zabeil
What We Are For - wundervolle Musik zu Nacht!
– radio eins
If you liked James Blake, this duo is giving it a new twist. The single "Starship" is geeeeenius!
– DJ Jan Mir
Eine Frau und ein Mann traten ans Keyboard und eine Gitarre, und dann passierte Wunderbares. Ich zumindest war platt auf dieser Party.
– Jürgen König (radioeins lost in music)
Written and produced by t.erner. Lyrics written and sung by Tom Werner and Therese Granberg.


text:
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text:
Carolina Miller
Those who are not familiar with the chemical names of the ingredients of cosmetics, prefer not to go into details – the list of components on the packaging often resembles a cipher. But with indifference to treat the fact that day after day it appears on your skin is also not quite correct. This material is devoted to the safety of funds in your cosmetic bag, as well as tips that will allow you to analyze the composition of cosmetics.
01. Case Study of Decorative Cosmetics
Before considering each component separately, it is worthwhile to get acquainted with the basic principles of the "device" of the makeup of cosmetics. The order of listing ingredients depends on their concentration. In the first place is always a substance, which is a percentage greater. In the list all components are arranged in descending order. At the very end – substances whose content is about 1%. And the fact that there is in the composition in even smaller quantities may not be prescribed at all.
Also when analyzing the ingredients, it is useful to know that any agent includes a base (80-90% of the content) and active ingredients (about 10-15% of the composition), as well as additives in the form of preservatives and perfumes (can take up to 5%). Frequently, the safety of a formula depends on the basis. Its task is to ensure the delivery of active ingredients and prevent skin dehydration; At the same time, it is important that it does not disturb the physiological processes in the skin.
02. How to Check, is Cosmetics Safe?
Basic knowledge of the composition of cosmetics in general helps at least offhand to determine whether the manufacturer has taken care of the safety of the composition. If you don't draw conclusions on your own, contact one of the many support services – for example, Cosmobase, Ecogolik, Ekokosmetika. Some of them offer to completely copy the list of ingredients and as a result give a comprehensive analysis of the composition.
03. Why Cosmetics Chemicals are so Dangares?
Many ingredients are present in the composition only in order to give the agent the necessary properties: for example, to make its texture comfortable and the aroma pleasant. This "benefit" does not extend to the skin. Most often, on the contrary, you can get a skin reaction in the form of irritation. Separate substances can have a negative effect on the hormones, the functioning of organs or even whole systems.
If we consider that harmful components are contained in cosmetics not one by one, but the means that each girl uses every day, maybe a dozen, then the probability of unpleasant consequences increases. In addition, if a particular substance is ingested into the body, a cumulative effect can be observed, which sooner or later will make itself felt.
I'm as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done.Lina Suny
All of them act differently, but are most often used to nourish the skin, restore the lipid balance. Thus, avocado oil promotes the production of collagen and elastin, coconut oil helps the skin with antibacterial properties, and macadamia oil has an antipollution effect. About some tools with oils you can read in this article.


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Publishers of technology books, eBooks, and videos for creative people
Register your product to gain access to bonus material or receive a coupon.
This is the official curriculum of the Apple Yosemite 201: OS X Server Essentials 10.10 course and preparation for Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (ACTC) 10.10 certification—as well as a top-notch primer for anyone who needs to implement, administer, or maintain a network that uses OS X Server on Yosemite. This book provides comprehensive coverage of OS X Server and is part of the Apple Pro Training series—the only Apple-certified books on the market. Designed for help desk specialists, technical coordinators, and entry-level system administrators, this guide teaches you how to install and configure OS X Server on Yosemite to provide network-based services. You'll also learn to use tools for efficiently managing and deploying OS X Server.
In addition to learning key concepts and experiencing hands-on, practical exercises throughout, the book also covers the learning objectives to help you prepare for the industry-standard ACTC certification.
OS X Server Essentials 10.10: Backing Up with Time Machine
OS X Server Essentials 10.10: Configuring Open Directory Services
OS X Server Essentials 10.10: Configuring Time Machine as a Network Service
OS X Server Essentials 10.10: Describe SSL Certificate Basics
OS X Server Essentials 10.10: Describing How DHCP Works
OS X Server Essentials 10.10: Introducing Account Management
OS X Server Essentials 10.10: Upgrading or Migrating to OS X Server
Download Lesson 4 Configuring SSL Certificates
About This Guide
Configuring and Monitoring OS X Server
Lesson 1 Installing OS X Server
Lesson 2 Providing DNS Records
Lesson 3 Exploring the Server App
Lesson 4 Configuring SSL Certificates
Lesson 5 Using Status and Notifications
Lesson 6 Backing Up OS X Server
Configuring Accounts
Lesson 7 Managing Local Users
Lesson 8 Configuring Open Directory Services
Lesson 9 Managing Local Network Accounts
Managing Devices with Configuration Profiles
Lesson 10 Configuring OS X Server to Provide Device Management
Lesson 11 Managing with Profile Manager
Sharing Files
Lesson 12 Configuring the File Sharing Service
Lesson 13 Defining File Access
Implementing Deployment Solutions
Lesson 14 Leveraging NetInstall
Lesson 15 Caching Content from Apple
Lesson 16 Implementing the Software Update Service
Providing Network Services
Lesson 17 Offering Time Machine Network Backup
Lesson 18 Providing Security via the VPN Service
Lesson 19 Configuring DHCP
Lesson 20 Hosting Websites
Using Collaborative Services
Lesson 21 Providing Mail Service
Lesson 22 Configuring the Wiki Service
Lesson 23 Implementing the Calendar Service
Lesson 24 Managing the Contacts Service
Lesson 25 Providing the Messages Service
Appendix A Lesson Review Questions and Answers (ONLINE)
Appendix B Additional Resources (ONLINE)


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Afghan Biographies
Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP)
Name | Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP) |
Ethnic backgr. | |
Date of birth | |
Function/Grade | Opposition, Insurgents, Taliban Commander Names |
History and Biodata |
Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP IRP) More than 3,000 Taliban militants, around 700 of them in Herat according to the government officials, have joined the government backed peace process over the past one year, a claim rejected by the Taliban outfit as baseless.(20121103) An official of NATO in Afghanistan on 20120516 said that 4,400 insurgents had so far joined the Insurgency Reintegration Programme (IRP) since its launch in 2009. Syed Anwar Ahmadti, governor of Sar-e Pol, said more than 600 insurgents had joined the government in his province in 2011 and confirmed that 200 had subsequently been judged fraudulent.
Sceptics allege the "insurgents" are in some cases only local men who are rounded up and given old weapons to hand in, so that local officials can appear efficient while also raking off a share of the reintegration money. (20120214)
Badakshan: Twenty Taliban fighters under Mawlawi Fazlulllah gave up fighting and joined the government-backed peace process. Mawlawi Fazlulllah had served as key Taliban commander in Badakhshan province and was involved in anti- government activities, mostly in Shahr-e-Buzarg district over the past couple of years.(20120418) Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Fatah along with nine of his men joined peace process in Argo district of Badakhshan Province (210120730) A total of 30 Taliban, including their commander Mullah Sohbaat, renounce violence and joined the peace and reconciliation process in Shahri Buzurg district of Badakhshan Province (20120915)
Armed Taliban led by Mawlawi Imamuddin said they had abandoned war and are interested to join peace process to attend reconstruction of the county, Shahr-e-Bozurg district chief, Shir Ali told said. (20121120)
Badghis: In Badghis, some men were from the Bala Murghab district were accompanied by their commander Abdullah. Since March 2011, 782 armed men have joined the government peace process in the same province.(20110811)
A eight-member group led by Mullah Mahmud was active against the government in Maqur district Badghis Province. It surrendered a machine gun, a rocket launcher and four other weapons. (20110605)
A group of 11 insurgents led by commander Mullah Amanullah joined the government-initiated peace process in northwestern Badghis province (20110907)
In Baghlan the locally known robber Baba Abedin is said to have joined the previous reintegration programme four times, pocketing financial incentives each time. (20111110) Fifty fighters of Heszb-i-Islami Afghanistan, led by Gulbadin Hekmatyar, have jointed the peace process in the northern province of Baghlan. Led by Daud, Hafiz, Najib and Nadir, the groups were active in Baghlan-i-Markazi district. (20120119) 22 Taliban insurgents led by Mullah Yasin and commander Naem were active against government for sometime in Kokchenar village of Baghlan-e-Markazi district and joined the peace process. (20120318) A 20-member group of Taliban, including their commanders commander Besmillah, Mullah Adel and Commander Joma Khan Sarkhaki have renounced violence and joined the peace process in Baghlan-e-Markazi district (20120125). Twenty six Taliban fighters under Mullah Imam gave up fighting and handed over their weapons to authorities in Borka district (20120411) Twenty Taliban fighters under Mullah Sayed Ahmad who were active in Nahrin district over the past couple of years gave up fighting. (20121129) A Taliban group under Qari Zafarullah composed of 14 fighters laid down arms they were active in Jirga district.(20130113)
14 armed militants handed over their weapons to police. The group commander Mohammad Reza in his short speech called on government to accelerate reconstruction process and create job oppurtunities.(20130421)
More than 100 militants vowed to give up violence and joined the Afghan peace process in northern Balkh province on 20111018. The men were active in Chemtal Chimtal and Char Bolak districts of Balkh province fighting against government Gen. Esmatullah Alizai, Balkh police chief, said. Led by Commander Nangyalay, the rebels also surrendered 60 weapons.(20111018) A 12-member rebel group joined peace process in the Nahr-i-Shahi district of northern Balkh province, an official said on Wednesday. Led by commander Sardar, the individuals surrendered in the Afghania town of the district. (20111130)
Led by regional Taliban commander Mullah Naqibullah an 18-member militant group joined the reconciliation programme in the Chahar Bolak district of Balkh province. (20120712)
16 Taliban, including their commander Amir Gul, give up fighting. The former militants were active in Dihdadi district. (20130220)
Farah: A 20-member rebel group led by Mullah Nooruddin Mullah Abdul Ghafar has joined the peace process in western Farah province. The fighters had been active in Bakwah, Bala Baluk and Gulistan districts. (20120202)
A 11-member group of militants, lead by Mullah Yar Mohammad, surrendered to the government in the Khak-i-Safed district of Farah province.(20120527)
A 7 member group of armed insurgents led by commander Qader joined to peace process in Faryab province (20111213).
Ghor: Around 100 armed insurgents under Mullah Abdul Karim gave up fighting and joined the peace process in the provincial capital Chighcheran city this afternoon (20120528) Fifty-five insurgents, including their commander Fazal Haq, turned in their weapons to security forces. The surrendering elements had been active in Dulina district over the past five years. (20120531) Thirty insurgents joined the government-initiated peace process in western Ghor province, taking the number of militants surrendering 2012 to 14 groups comprised of 300 men. Led by Mullah Abdul Karim, Mullah Zarif and Mohammad Musa, the former fighters reconciled with the government in Shahrak and Charsadda districts. (20120802)
Mullah Ferooz and Mullah Abdullah (two senior commanders of Taliban) with their 24 men joined to peace process in Ghoor province. Mullah Ferooz and Mullah Abdullah operated against government forces in Doulena and Shahrak districts of Ghor Ghowr province. (20130209)
Helmand: Abdul Sattar from Kajaki District shunned the insurgency as a result of efforts by the governor. Seven AK-47 assault rifles, one rocket-propelled grenade, a walkie-talkie, and a motorbike were turned over to the security personnel.(20120108)
Herat: Twelve armed insurgents under Mullah Abdul Salam Dilawar handed over their weapons to security authorities in Adraskan district and joined the peace process (20111127) A 10-member insurgent group laid down its weapons and surrendered to government in western Herat province on Wednesday, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) said in a statement. The men and their commander, Mullah Gul Ahmad, are from the Adraskan District of Herat province, the statement said.(20111214) 30 irresponsible armed men joined the peace process in Obea district of Herat province (20111228) A commander named Arbab Malik joined the Afghan peace process along with his eight associates in a ceremony attended by Herat governor Dr. Daud Shah Saba and provincial police chief Colonel Sayed Agha Saqib and other provincial officials in Chesht district of the province. The individuals have also submitted their arms to the police in the province. Nearly 400 armed Taliban have so far surrendered in Herat province.(20120108) A 14-member group of Taliban fighters, including their commander Mullah Basir Ahmad, has renounced violence and joined the government in Shindand district of Herat province Tuesday morning (20120110) Thirty more Taliban rebels surrendered in the Afghanistan's western province of Herat on 20120130, including their commander namely Mullah Abdullah Charsy. They have renounced violence and joined the peace process in Pashtun Zarghun district. 20 Taliban fighters under Mullah Abdul Ghani renounced violence and joined the government-initiated peace process in Gulran district on 20120220. Taliban-designated district chief for Chesht Mullah Abdul Rahman Maldar along with his four associates on 20120514 joined government-initiated peace process in western Herat province. A total of 15 Taliban fighters, including their commander Mullah Anis Akhond joined the peace process in Shindand district on 20120514.
Commander Abdul Latif along with nine of his men joined peace process in Herat province 20120618. The group was active in Karukh district Abdul Wahed Nazari, leader of 16 insurgents joined the Afghan government's reconciliation programme in western Herat province after internal disputes among the local Taliban in Gulran District.(20120712) 12 Taliban fighters under Mullah Baz Mohammad were active in Kushk-e-Kohna district over the past couple of years and were joining the peace process. (20121103)
35 Taliban headed by Mullah Nasir a senior commander of Taliban joined peace process in Herat province 20130218.They conducted anti-state activities in Shindand and Obas districts.
Jawzjan Jowzjan: A 45-member rebel group and their commander led by Mullah Akbar joined the peace process in the Darz Aab district of northern Jawzjan province, the insurgents operated in Chakana and Jungle villages (20110914) A 28-member rebel group, which joined the peace process in northern Jawzjan province, asked on Saturday for employment opportunities, an official said on 20110917. Led by Mullah Abdul Fatah and Mullah Abdul Hakim, the insurgents operated in Darz Aab and Qush Tepa districts.
A 12-member militant group under their leader Mohammad Azim has joined the peace process. The group was active in Qush Tepa District. (20120208)
Kandahar: Ten Taliban militants joined the peace and reintegration process in Kandahar Province August 4, 2011. The group of 80 Taliban under Mullah Shamsullah fought the government in Panjwai District. Mullah Mohammad Jan and 15 men surrendered to authorities. The group leader was loyal to Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim, who had been active in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, the official said. The group agreed to surrender with the help of Mullah Tor Jan, who had earlier joined the peace process.(20110605) An eight-member militant group operating in southern Kandahar province. They are Residents of Panjwai district. The men, led by Commander Juma Kaka, gave up the insurgency as a result of efforts by the district chief and peace council members (20111102) A group of 50 member from the government armed oppositions has joined peace process in Panjwaye the southern province of Kandahar. The group was led by Hajji Maullem who had been engaged in anti-government activities in some parts of Kandahar city and Helmand province districts such as Kajaki, Musa Qala, Sangeen and Greshk districts. (20111220)
10 members group of armed Taliban in Kandahar province jointed to peace process 20120220 This group led by Mawlawi Zainullah had activity against Afghan and NATO forces in the outskirts of Panjwai district.
An 18-member group of Taliban including their commander Heydari laid down their arms and joined the government-initiated peace and reintegration process in Kunar. (20130211)
Kunduz: Four Taliban commanders Mullah Nabi, Mullah Abdullah, Omar and Gulistan, who had joined the process along with dozens of their fighters over the past five months in Kunduz, were assassinated.(20111010) A Taliban commander, Maulawi Abdul Rahman, known as Maulawi Palang-e-Takhari, joined the peace process in Kunduz.(20120702) A group of 14 armed insurgents led by Mullah Abdul Bari (aka Mullah Hassan) joined peace process in Aliabad district of northern Kunduz province. (20120719) A ten-member group of armed militants under Mullah Zahidullah laid down arms and joined peace process in Kunduz city. (20121223)
18 fighters including their commanders Qari Bashr and Mullah Zaman formally renounced their Taliban ties. The insurgents have been fighting against security forces in the several parts of Kunduz.(20130310)
Laghman Lagman: Six Taliban militants joined the peace process in the Badpakh district of eastern Laghman province, the spy service said on Wednesday. The ex-militants were active in the Badpakh district, the provincial intelligence department said. Malik Nasrullah, an ex-fighter, said he could not put up with Pakistan's artillery shelling into Afghanistan. Mohammad Talib, 28, said he repented fighting against Afghan forces.(20111005) The local Taliban commander Hafta Gul joined the reconciliation programme in Laghman province.He was active in Daulat Shah district. (20111221)
100 armed insurgents joined the peace process in Laghman province 20120304. Tey were led by commander Gul Zaman and they had activities against government in Doulatshah district of Laghman province.
Commander Mohabat Khan with a five-member insurgent group joined the government in eastern Nangarhar province. The group had been active against government and foreign forces in Achin district. (20130113)
Uruzgan Oruzgan:
Mullah Samad a Taliban local commander in Urozgan province with 11 of his followers joined the government today. He was activ against the government in the outskirts of Khas district of Urozgan province.(20120207)
Zabul Zabol: |
Last Modified | 2015-02-23 |
Established | 2011-08-26 |


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Dana Gardner: Hi, this is Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, and you're listening to BriefingsDirect.
Today, we present a sponsored podcast discussion on how new data and analysis approaches are significantly improving IT operations monitoring, as well as providing stronger security. We'll examine how advances in big data analytics and complex events processing (CEP) can come together to provide deep and real-time, pattern-based insight into large-scale IT operations.
AccelOps has developed the technology to correlate events with relevant data across IT systems, so that operators can gain much better insights faster, and then learn as they go to better predict future problems before they emerge. [Disclosure: AccelOps is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]
With us now to explain how these new solutions can drive better IT monitoring and remediation response -- and keep those critical systems performing at their best -- is our guest, Mahesh Kumar, Vice President of Marketing at AccelOps. Welcome to BriefingsDirect, Mahesh.
Mahesh Kumar: Dana, glad to be here.
Gardner: It's always been difficult to gain and maintain comprehensive and accurate analysis of large-scale IT operations, but it seems, Mahesh, that this is getting more difficult. I think there have been some shifts in computing in general in these environments that makes getting a comprehensive view of what's going on perhaps more difficult than ever. Is that fair in your estimation?
Kumar: Absolutely, Dana. There are several trends that are fundamentally questioning existing and traditional ways of monitoring a data center.
Gardner: Of course we're seeing lots of virtualization. People are getting into higher levels of density, and so forth. How does that impact the issue about monitoring and knowing what's going on with your systems? How is virtualization a complexity factor?
Kumar: If you look at trends, there are on average about 10 virtual machines (VMs) to a physical server. Predictions are that this is going to increase to about 50 to 1, maybe higher, with advances in hardware and virtualization technologies. So that's one trend, the increase in density of VMs is a complicating factor for capacity planning, capacity management, performance management, and security.
Corresponding to this is just the sheer number of VMs being added in the enterprise. Analysts estimate that just in the last few years, we have added as many VMs as there were physical machines. In a very short period of time, you have in effect seen a doubling of the size of the IT management problem. So there are a huge number of VMs to manage and that introduces complexity and a lot of data that is created.
Moreover, your workloads are constantly changing. vMotion and DRS are causing changes to happen in hours, minutes, or even seconds, whereas in the past, it would take a week or two for a new server to be introduced, or a server to be moved from one segment of the network to the other.
So change is happening much more quickly and rapidly than ever before. At the very least, you need monitoring and management that can keep pace with today's rate of change.
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is another big trend. All analyst research and customer feedback suggests that we're moving to a hybrid model, where you have some workloads on a public cloud, some in a private cloud, and some running in a traditional data center. For this, monitoring has to work in a distributed environment, across multiple controlling parties.
Last but certainly not the least, in a hybrid environment, there is absolutely no clear perimeter that you need to defend from a security perspective. Security has to be pervasive.
Given these new realities, it's no longer possible to separate performance monitoring aspects from security monitoring aspects, because of the distributed nature of the problem. You can't have two different sets of eyes looking at multiple points of presence, from different angles and then try to piece that together.
Those are some of the trends that are causing a fundamental rethink in how IT monitoring and management systems have to be architected.
Gardner: And even as we're seeing complexity ramp-up in these data centers, many organizations are bringing these data centers together and consolidating them. At the same time, we're seeing more spread of IT into remote locations and offices. And we're seeing more use of mobile and distributed activities for data and applications. So we're not only talking about complexity, but we're talking about scale here.
Every office with voice over IP (VoIP) phones needs some servers and network equipment in their office, and those servers and network equipment have to be secured and their up-time guaranteed.
Kumar: And very geographically distributed scale. To give you an example, every office with voice over IP (VoIP) phones needs some servers and network equipment in their office, and those servers and network equipment have to be secured and their up-time guaranteed.
So what was typically thought of as a remote office now has a mini data center, or at least some elements of a data center, in it. You need your monitoring and management systems to have the reach and can easily and flexibly bring those under management and ensure their availability and security.
Gardner: What are some of the ways that you can think about this differently? I know it's sort of at a vision level, but typically in the past, people thought about a system and then the management of that system. Now, we have to think about clouds and fabrics. We're just using a different vocabulary to describe IT. I suppose we need to have a different vocabulary to describe how we manage and monitor it as well.
Kumar: The basic problem you need to address is one of analysis. Why is that? As we discussed earlier, the scale of systems is really high. The pace of change is very high. The sheer number of configurations that need to be managed is very large. So there's data explosion here.
Since you have a plethora of information coming at you, the challenge is no longer collection of that information. It's how you analyze that information in a holistic manner and provide consumable and actionable data to your business, so that you're able to actually then prevent problems in the future or respond to any issues in real-time or in near real-time.
You need to nail the real-time analytics problem and this has to be the centerpiece of any monitoring or management platform going forward.
Fire hose of data
Gardner: In the past, this fire hose of data was often brought into a repository, perhaps indexed and analyzed, and then over time reports and analysis would be derived from it. That's the way that all data was managed.
But we really can't take the time to do that, especially when we have to think about real-time management. Is there a fundamental change in how we approach the data that's coming from IT systems in order to get a better monitoring and analysis capability?
Kumar: The data has to be analyzed in real-time. By real-time I mean in streaming mode before the data hits the disk. You need to be able to analyze it and make decisions. That's actually a very efficient way of analyzing information. Because you avoid a lot of data sync issues and duplicate data, you can react immediately in real time to remediate systems or provide very early warnings in terms of what is going wrong.
The challenges in doing this streaming-mode analysis are scale and speed. The traditional approaches with pure relational databases alone are not equipped to analyze data in this manner. You need new thinking and new approaches to tackle this analysis problem.
Gardner: Also for issues of security, you don't want to find out about security weaknesses by going back and analyzing a bunch of data in a repository. You want to be able to look and find correlations about what's going on, where attacks might be originating, and how that might be affecting different aspects of your infrastructure.
Attackers may hijack an account or gain access to a server, and then over time, stealthily, be able to collect or capture the information that they are after.
People are trying different types of attacks. So this needs to be in real-time as well. It strikes me that if you want to solve security as well as monitoring, that that is also something that has to be in real-time and not something that you go back to every week or month.
Kumar: You might be familiar with advanced persistent threats (APTs). These are attacks where the attacker tries their best to be invisible. These are not the brute-force attacks that we have witnessed in the past. Attackers may hijack an account or gain access to a server, and then over time, stealthily, be able to collect or capture the information that they are after.
These kinds of threats cannot be effectively handled only by looking at data historically, because these are activities that are happening in real-time, and there are very, very weak signals that need to be interpreted, and there is a time element of what else is happening at that time. What seems like disparate sets of activity have to be brought together to be able to provide a level of defense or a defense mechanism against these APTs. This too calls for streaming-mode analysis.
If you notice, for example, someone accessing a server, a database administrator accessing a server for which they have an admin account, it gives you a certain amount of feedback around that activity. But if on the other hand, you learn that a user is accessing a database server for which they don't have the right level of privileges, it may be a red flag.
You need to be able to connect this red flag that you identify in one instance with the same user trying to do other activity in different kinds of systems. And you need to do that over long periods of time in order to defend yourself against APTs.
Advances in IT
Gardner: So we have the modern data center, we have issues of complexity and virtualization, we have scale, we have data as a deluge, and we need to do something fast in real-time and consistently to learn and relearn and derive correlations.
It turns out that there are some advances in IT over the past several years that have been applied to solve other problems that can be brought to bear here.
This is one of the things that really jumped out at me when I did my initial briefing with AccelOps. You've looked at what's being done with big data and in-memory architectures, and you've also looked at some of the great work that's been done in services-oriented architecture (SOA) and CEP, and you've put these together in an interesting way.
Let's talk about what the architecture needs to be in order to start doing for IT what we have been doing with retail data or looking at complex events in a financial environment to derive inference into what's going on in the real world. What is the right architecture, now that we need to move to for this higher level of operations and monitoring?
Kumar: Excellent point, Dana. Clearly, based on what we've discussed, there is a big-data angle to this. And, I want to clarify here that big data is not just about volume.
A single configuration setting can have a security implication, a performance implication, an availability implication, and even a capacity implication in some cases.
Doug Laney, a META and a Gartner analyst, probably put it best when he highlighted that big data is about volume, the velocity or the speed with which the data comes in and out, and the variety or the number of different data types and sources that are being indexed and managed. I would add to this a fourth V, which is verdicts, or decisions, that are made. How many decisions are actually impacted or potentially impacted by a slight change in data?
For example, in an IT management paradigm, a single configuration setting can have a security implication, a performance implication, an availability implication, and even a capacity implication in some cases. Just a small change in data has multiple decision points that are affected by it. From our angle, all these different types of criteria affect the big data problem.
When you look at all these different aspects of IT management and how it impacts what essentially presents itself as a big data challenge or a big data problem, that's an important angle that all IT management and monitoring products need to incorporate in their thinking and in their architectures, because the problem is only going to get worse.
Gardner: Understanding that big data is the issue, and we know what's been done with managing big data in this most comprehensive definition, how can we apply that realistically and practically to IT systems?
It seems to me that you are going to have to do more with the data, cleansing it, discovering it, and making it manageable. Tell me how we can apply the concepts of big data that people have been using in retail and these other applications, and now point that at the IT operations issues and make it applicable and productive.
Couple of approaches
Kumar: I mentioned the analytics ability as central to monitoring systems – big-data analytics to be specific. There are a couple of approaches. Some companies are doing some really interesting work around big-data analysis for IT operations.
They primarily focus on gathering the data, heavily indexing it, and making it available for search, thereby derive analytical results. It allows you to do forensic analysis that you were not easily able to with traditional monitoring systems.
The challenge with that approach is that it swings the pendulum all the way to the other end. Previously we had a very rigid, well-defined relational data-models or data structures, and the index and search approach is much more of a free form. So the pure index-and-search type of an approach is sort of the other end of the spectrum.
What you really need is something that incorporates the best of both worlds and puts that together, and I can explain to you how that can be accomplished with a more modern architecture. To start with, we can't do away with this whole concept of a model or a relationship diagram or entity relationship map. It's really critical for us to maintain that.
I'll give you an example. When you say that a server is part of a network segment, and a server is connected to a switch in a particular way, it conveys certain meaning. And because of that meaning, you can now automatically apply policies, rules, patterns, and automatically exploit the meaning that you capture purely from that relationship. You can automate a lot of things just by knowing that.
If you stick to a pure index-and-search approach, you basically zero out a lot of this meaning and you lose information in the process.
If you stick to a pure index-and-search approach, you basically zero out a lot of this meaning and you lose information in the process. Then it's the operators who have to handcraft these queries to have to then reestablish this meaning that's already out there. That can get very, very expensive pretty quickly.
Even at a fairly small scale, you'll find more and more people having to do things, and a pure index and search approach really scales with people, not as much with technology and automation. Index and search certainly adds a positive dimension to traditional IT monitoring tools -- but that alone is not the answer for the future.
Our approach to this big-data analytics problem is to take a hybrid approach. You need a flexible and extensible model that you start with as a foundation, that allows you to then apply meaning on top of that model to all the extended data that you capture and that can be kept in flat files and searched and indexed. You need that hybrid approach in order to get a handle on this problem.
Gardner: I suppose you also have to have your own architecture that can scale. So you're going to concepts like virtual appliances and scaling on-demand vis-à-vis clustering, and taking advantage of in-memory and streaming capabilities to manage this. Tell me why you need to think about the architecture that supports this big data capability in order for it to actually work in practical terms?
Kumar: You start with a fully virtualized architecture, because it allows you not only to scale easily. From a reach standpoint, with a virtualized architecture, you're able to reach into these multiple disparate environments and capture and analyze and bring that information in. So virtualized architecture is absolutely essentially for you to start with.
Auto correlate
Maybe more important is the ability for you to auto-correlate and analyze data, and that analysis has to be distributed analysis. Because whenever you have a big data problem, especially in something like IT management, you're not really sure of the scale of data that you need to analyze and you can never plan for it.
Let me put it another way. There is no server big enough to be able to analyze all of that. You'll always fall short of compute capacity because analysis requirements keep growing. Fundamentally, the architecture has to be one where the analysis is done in a distributed manner. It's easy to add compute capacity by scaling horizontally. Your architecture fits how computing models are evolving over the long run. So there are a lot of synergies to be exploited here by having a distributed analytics framework.
Think of it as applying a MapReduce type of algorithm to IT management problems, so that you can do distributed analysis, and the analysis is highly granular or specific. In IT management problems, it's always about the specificity with which you analyze and detect a problem that makes all the difference between whether that product or the solution is useful for a customer or not.
Gardner: In order for us to meet our requirements around scale and speed, we really have to think about the support underneath these capabilities in a new way. It seems like, in a sense, architecture is destiny when it comes to the support and monitoring for these large volumes in this velocity of data.
Let's look at the other part of this. We talked about the big data, but in order for the solution to work, we're looking at CEP capabilities in an engine that can take that data and then work with it and analyze it for these events and these programmable events and looking for certain patterns.
A major advantage of distributed analytics is that you're freed from the scale-versus-richness trade-off, from the limits on the type of events you can process.
Now that we understand the architecture and why it's important, tell me why this engine brings you to a higher level and differentiates you in the field around the monitoring.
Kumar: A major advantage of distributed analytics is that you're freed from the scale-versus-richness trade-off, from the limits on the type of events you can process. If I wanted to do more complex events and process more complex events, it's a lot easier to add compute capacity by just simply adding VMs and scaling horizontally. That's a big aspect of automating deep forensic analysis into the data that you're receiving.
I want to add a little bit more about the richness of CEP. It's not just around capturing data and massaging it or looking at it from different angles and events. When we say CEP, we mean it is advanced to the point where it starts to capture how people would actually rationalize and analyze a problem.
For example, the ability for people in a simple visual snapshot to connect three different data points or three events together and say that they're interrelated and they point to a specific problem.
The only way you can automate your monitoring systems end-to-end and get more of the human element out of it is when your CEP system is able to capture those nuances that people in the NOC and SOC would normally use to rationalize when they look at events. You not only look at a stream of events, you ask further questions and then determine the remedy.
No hard limits
To do this, you should have a rich data set to analyze, i.e. there shouldn't be any hard limits placed on what data can participate in the analysis and you should have the flexibility to easily add new data sources or types of data. So it's very important for the architecture to be able to not only event on data that are is stored in in traditional models or well-defined relational models, but also event against data that's typically serialized and indexed in flat file databases.
This hybrid approach basically breaks the logjam in terms of creating these systems that are very smart and that could substitute for people in terms of how they think and how they react to events that are manifested in the NOC. You are not bound to data in an inflexible vendor defined model. You can also bring in the more free-form data into the analytics domain and do deep and specific analysis with it.
Cloud and virtualization are also making this possible. Although they've introduced more complexity due to change frequency, distributed workloads etc., they've also introduced some structure into IT environments. An example here is the use of converged infrastructure (Cisco UCS, HP Blade Matrix) to build private-cloud environments. At least at the infrastructure level it introduces some order and predictability.
Gardner: All right, Mahesh, we've talked about the problem in the market, we have talked about high-level look at the solution and why you need to do things differently, and why having the right architecture to support that is important, but let's get into the results.
If you do this properly, if you leverage and exploit these newer methods in IT -- like big data, analytics, CEP, virtual appliances and clustered instances of workload and support, and when you apply all those to this problem about the fire hose of data coming out of IT systems, a comprehensive look at IT in this fashion -- what do you get? What's the payoff if you do this properly?
Their needs are really around managing security, performance and configurations. These are three interconnected metrics in a virtualized cloud environment.
Kumar: I want to answer this question from a customer standpoint. It is no surprise that our customers don't come to us saying we have a big data problem, help us solve a big data problem, or we have a complex event problem.
Their needs are really around managing security, performance and configurations. These are three interconnected metrics in a virtualized cloud environment. You can't separate one from the other. And customers say they are so interconnected that they want these managed on a common platform. So they're really coming at it from a business-level or outcome-focused perspective.
What AccelOps does under the covers, is apply techniques such as big-data analysis, complex driven processing, etc., to then solve those problems for the customer. That is the key payoff -- that customer's key concerns that I just mentioned are addressed in a unified and scalable manner.
An important factor for customer productivity and adoption is the product user-interface. It is not of much use if a product leverages these advanced techniques but makes the user interface complicated -- you end up with the same result as before. So we've designed a UI that's very easy to use, requires one or two clicks to get the information you need; a UI-driven ability to compose rich events and event patterns. Our customers find this very valuable, as they do not need super-specialized skills to work with our product.
Gardner: What's important to think about when we mention your customers is not just applying this value to an enterprise environment. Increasingly the cloud, with the virtualization, the importance of managing performance to very high standards, these are also impacting the cloud providers, managed service providers (MSPs), and software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers.
Up and running
This sounds like an architecture, an approach and a solution that's going to really benefit them, because their bread and butter is about keeping all of the systems up and running and making sure that all their service level agreements (SLAs) and contracts are being managed and adhered to.
Just to be clear, we're talking about an approach for a fairly large cross-section of the modern computing world -- enterprises and many different stripes of what we consider as service providers.
Kumar: Service providers are a very significant market segment for us and they are some of our largest customers. The reason they like the architecture that we have, very clearly, is that it's scalable. They know that the architecture scales as their business scales.
They also know that they get both the performance management and the security management aspects in a single platform. They're actually able to differentiate their customer offerings compared to other MSPs that may not have both, because security becomes really critical.
For anyone wanting to outsource to an MSP, the first question or one of the first questions that they are going to ask, in addition to the SLAs, are how are you going to ensure security? So to have both of those options is absolutely critical.
Subscription based licensing, which we offer in addition to perpetual licensing, also fits well with the CSP/MSP business model.
The third piece really is the fact that our architecture is multi-tenant from day one. We're able to bring customers on board with a one-touch mechanism, where they can bring the customer online, apply the right types of policies, whether it's SLA policies or security polices, automatically in our product and completely segment the data from one customer to the other.
All of that capability was built into our products from day one. So we didn't have to retrofit any of that. That's something our cloud-service providers and managed service provider customers find very appealing in terms of adopting AccelOps products.
Subscription based licensing, which we offer in addition to perpetual licensing, also fits well with the CSP/MSP business model.
Gardner: All right. Let's introduce your products in a little bit more detail. We understand you have created a platform, an architecture, for doing these issues or solving these issues for these very intense types of environments, for these large customers, enterprises, and service providers. Tell us a little bit about your portfolio.
Key metrics
Kumar: What we've built is a platform that monitors data center performance, security, and configurations. The three key interconnected metrics in virtualized cloud environments. Most of our customers really want that combined and integrated platform. Some of them might choose to start with addressing security, but they soon bring in the performance management aspects into it also. And vice versa.
And we take a holistic cross-domain perspective -- we span server, storage, network, virtualization and applications.
What we've really built is a common consistent platform that addresses these problems of performance, security, and configurations, in a holistic manner and that's the main thing that our customers buy from us today.
Gardner: It sounds as if we're doing business intelligence for IT. We really are getting to the point where we can have precise dashboards, and we are not just making inferences and guesses. We're not just doing Boolean searches on old or even faulty data.
We're really looking at the true data, the true picture in real-time, and therefore starting to do the analysis that I think can start driving productivity to even newer heights than we have been accustomed to. So is that the vision, business intelligence (BI) for IT?
As you add the number of VMs or devices, you simply cannot scale the management cost, in a linear fashion. You want to have continuously reducing management cost for every new VM added or new device introduced.
Kumar: I guess you could say that. To break it down, from an IT management and monitoring standpoint, it is on an ongoing basis to continuously reducing the per capita management costs. As you add the number of VMs or devices, you simply cannot scale the management cost, in a linear fashion. You want to have continuously reducing management cost for every new VM added or new device introduced.
The way you do that is obviously through automation and through a self-learning process, whereby as you continue to learn more and more about the behavior of your applications and infrastructure, you're able to start to easily codify more and more of those patterns and rules in the system, thereby taking sort of the human element out of it bit by bit.
What we have as a product and a platform is the ability for you to increase the return on investment (ROI) on the platform as you continue to use that platform day-to-day. You add more information and enrich the platform with more rules, more patterns, and complex events that you can detect and potentially take automated actions on in the future.
So we create a virtuous cycle, with our product returning higher and higher return on your investment with time. Whereas, in traditional products, scale and longevity have the opposite effect.
So that's really our vision. How do you reduce the per capita management cost as the scale of the enterprises start to increase, and how do you increase more automation as one of the elements of reducing the management cost within IT?
Gardner: You have given people a path to start in on this, sort of a crawl-walk-run approach. Tell me how that works. I believe you have a trial download, an opportunity for people to try this out for free.
Free trial download
Kumar: Most of our customers start off with the free trial download. It's a very simple process. Visit www.accelops.com/download and download a virtual appliance trial that you can install in your data center within your firewall very quickly and easily.
Getting started with the AccelOps product is pretty simple. You fire up the product and enter the credentials needed to access the devices to be monitored. We do most of it agentlessly, and so you just enter the credentials, the range that you want to discover and monitor, and that's it. You get started that way and you hit Go.
The product then uses this information to determine what's in the environment. It automatically establishes relationships between them, automatically applies the rules and policies that come out of the box with the product, and some basic thresholds that are already in the product that you can actually start measuring the results. Within a few hours of getting started, you'll have measurable results and trends and graphs and charts to look at and gain benefits from it.
That's a very simple process, and I encourage all our listeners and readers to download our free trial software and try AccelOps.
Gardner: I also have to imagine that your comments a few moments ago about not being able to continue on the same trajectory when it comes to management is only going to accelerate the need to automate and find the intelligent rather than the hard or laborious way to solve this when we go to things like cloud and increased mobility of workers and distributed computing.
It's about automation and distributed analytics and about getting very specific with the information that you have, so that you can make absolutely more predictable, 99.9 percent correct of decisions and do that in an automated manner.
So the trends are really in your favor. It seems that as we move toward cloud and mobile that at some point or another organizations will hit the wall and look for the automation alternative.
Kumar: It's about automation and distributed analytics and about getting very specific with the information that you have, so that you can make absolutely more predictable, 99.9 percent correct of decisions and do that in an automated manner. The only way you can do that is if you have a platform that's rich enough and scalable and that allows you to then reach that ultimate goal of automating most of the management of these diverse and disparate environments.
That's something that's sorely lacking in products today. As you said, it's all brute-force today. What we have built is a very elegant, easy-to-use way of managing your IT problems, whether it's from a security standpoint, performance management standpoint, or configuration standpoint, in a single integrated platform. That's extremely appealing for our customers, both enterprise and cloud-service providers.
I also want to take this opportunity to encourage those of your listening or reading this podcast to come meet our team at the 2011 Gartner Data Center Conference, Dec. 5-9, at Booth 49 and learn more. AccelOps is a silver sponsor of the conference.
Gardner: I am afraid we will have to leave it there. You've been listening to a sponsored BriefingsDirect podcast. We've been talking about how new data and analysis approaches from AccelOps are attaining significantly improved IT operations monitoring as well as stronger security.
I'd like to thank our guest, Mahesh Kumar, Vice President of Marketing at AccelOps. Thank so much, Mahesh.
Kumar: Thank you, Dana.
Gardner: This is Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. Thanks again for listening and come back next time.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes/iPod. Download the transcript. Sponsor: AccelOps.
Connect with AccelOps: Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, RSS.
Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how enterprises can benefit from capturing and analyzing systems data to improve IT management in real-time. Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC, 2005-2011. All rights reserved.
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Noninvasive brain control
New light-sensitive protein enables simpler, more powerful optogenetics.
Optogenetics, a technology that allows scientists to control brain activity by shining light on neurons, relies on light-sensitive proteins that can suppress or stimulate electrical signals within cells. This technique requires a light source to be implanted in the brain, where it can reach the cells to be controlled.
MIT engineers have now developed the first light-sensitive molecule that enables neurons to be silenced noninvasively, using a light source outside the skull. This makes it possible to do long-term studies without an implanted light source. The protein, known as Jaws, also allows a larger volume of tissue to be influenced at once.
This noninvasive approach could pave the way to using optogenetics in human patients to treat epilepsy and other neurological disorders, the researchers say, although much more testing and development is needed. Led by Ed Boyden, an associate professor of biological engineering and brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, the researchers described the protein in the June 29 issue of Nature Neuroscience.
Optogenetics, a technique developed over the past 15 years, has become a common laboratory tool for shutting off or stimulating specific types of neurons in the brain, allowing neuroscientists to learn much more about their functions.
The neurons to be studied must be genetically engineered to produce light-sensitive proteins known as opsins, which are channels or pumps that influence electrical activity by controlling the flow of ions in or out of cells. Researchers then insert a light source, such as an optical fiber, into the brain to control the selected neurons.
Such implants can be difficult to insert, however, and can be incompatible with many kinds of experiments, such as studies of development, during which the brain changes size, or of neurodegenerative disorders, during which the implant can interact with brain physiology. In addition, it is difficult to perform long-term studies of chronic diseases with these implants.
Mining nature's diversity
To find a better alternative, Boyden, graduate student Amy Chuong, and colleagues turned to the natural world. Many microbes and other organisms use opsins to detect light and react to their environment. Most of the natural opsins now used for optogenetics respond best to blue or green light.
Boyden's team had previously identified two light-sensitive chloride ion pumps that respond to red light, which can penetrate deeper into living tissue. However, these molecules, found in the bacteria Haloarcula marismortui and Haloarcula vallismortis, did not induce a strong enough photocurrent — an electric current in response to light — to be useful in controlling neuron activity.
Chuong set out to improve the photocurrent by looking for relatives of these proteins and testing their electrical activity. She then engineered one of these relatives by making many different mutants. The result of this screen, Jaws, retained its red-light sensitivity but had a much stronger photocurrent — enough to shut down neural activity.
"This exemplifies how the genomic diversity of the natural world can yield powerful reagents that can be of use in biology and neuroscience," says Boyden, who is a member of MIT's Media Lab and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.
Using this opsin, the researchers were able to shut down neuronal activity in the mouse brain with a light source outside the animal's head. The suppression occurred as deep as 3 millimeters in the brain, and was just as effective as that of existing silencers that rely on other colors of light delivered via conventional invasive illumination.
A key advantage to this opsin is that it could enable optogenetic studies of animals with larger brains, says Garret Stuber, an assistant professor of psychiatry and cell biology and physiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"In animals with larger brains, people have had difficulty getting behavior effects with optogenetics, and one possible reason is that not enough of the tissue is being inhibited," he says. "This could potentially alleviate that."
Restoring vision
Working with researchers at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Switzerland, the MIT team also tested Jaws's ability to restore the light sensitivity of retinal cells called cones. In people with a disease called retinitis pigmentosa, cones slowly atrophy, eventually causing blindness.
Friedrich Miescher Institute scientists Botond Roska and Volker Busskamp have previously shown that some vision can be restored in mice by engineering those cone cells to express light-sensitive proteins. In the new paper, Roska and Busskamp tested the Jaws protein in the mouse retina and found that it more closely resembled the eye's natural opsins and offered a greater range of light sensitivity, making it potentially more useful for treating retinitis pigmentosa.
This type of noninvasive approach to optogenetics could also represent a step toward developing optogenetic treatments for diseases such as epilepsy, which could be controlled by shutting off misfiring neurons that cause seizures, Boyden says. "Since these molecules come from species other than humans, many studies must be done to evaluate their safety and efficacy in the context of treatment," he says.
Boyden's lab is working with many other research groups to further test the Jaws opsin for other applications. The team is also seeking new light-sensitive proteins and is working on high-throughput screening approaches that could speed up the development of such proteins.
The research at MIT was funded by Jerry and Marge Burnett, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Human Frontiers Science Program, the IET A. F. Harvey Prize, the Janet and Sheldon Razin '59 Fellowship of the MIT McGovern Institute, the New York Stem Cell Foundation-Robertson Investigator Award, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation.


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Cynthia Carroll today announced she would step down from mining giant Anglo American. We answer five questions on Carroll's resignation.
Why has Carroll stepped down at this time?
Carroll's official line is that she felt 'the time was right'.
However, it is believed Carroll has stepped down because of mounting pressure from shareholders who are said to have lost confidence in her strategy and leadership after a sharp drop in profits.
On July 27 Anglo announced that first-half earnings had fallen 46pc to $3.7bn (£2.4bn) which triggered a fall of 3.6pc in the share price.
Shareholders are believed to have made the unusual move of going over the head of the chairman of Anglo, Sir John Parker, who had previously rebuffed their concerns, and contacted David Challen, the company's senior independent director, to demand the chairman be overruled and a new Chief Executive found.
What has Carroll said?
"I am extremely proud of everything we have achieved during my period as chief executive and I will always retain enormous admiration and affection for this great company and its outstanding people," she said.
"It is a very difficult decision to leave, but next year I will be entering my seventh year as chief executive and I feel that the time will be right to hand over to a successor who can build further on the strong foundations we have created."
What has Anglo said?
"Cynthia's leadership has had a transformational impact on Anglo American. She developed a clear strategy, based on a highly attractive range of core commodities, and created a strong and unified culture and a streamlined organisation with a focus on operational performance."
"Her legacy will include, among many other things, a step change improvement in safety, sustainability and the quality of our dialogue with governments, communities and other stakeholders," he added.
When will Carroll leave her post?
When a successor has been appointed and a handover has taken place.
What does this mean for the border spectrum of business?
That there are only two women left in charge of Britain's biggest companies; these are Angela Ahrendts at Burberry and Alison Cooper of Imperial Tobacco. Anglo will now also be looking for a Chief Executive to replace Carroll.


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Friday, October 22, 2010
TGIF! Finally!
...or should I say...PHINALLY! Go Phillies!
Sexy Survey Time!
1. Do you have "dirty" sex, or "proper" sex?
2. The first time you have sex with someone, are you more concerned with pleasing him/her or being pleased?
3. How do you get over a break-up?
4. What is your favorite sex "prop" - food, clothing, whips, scarves, handcuffs, etc.?
5. Women: Do you have sex when "Aunt Flo" is in town? Men: Do you "run red lights"?
6. What would your sexy Halloween costume be?
7. Do you kiss your partner after giving or receiving oral sex?
8. The mailroom guy flirts with you everyday, the woman who makes your coffee just right at Starbucks thinks you're hot...do you tell (brag to) your significant other about folks that flirt with you or come on to you daily or do you keep it to yourself?
9. Your man/woman buys you an article of clothing that you hate. Do you: say thank you, give him/her a kiss and never wear it? Say thank you, give him/her a kiss and then later secretly return it behind his/her back? Or say thank you, give/her a kiss and wear it proudly?
10. Is sex in a nice, cozy comfy bed with 1,000 thread count sheets underrated? Or do you have to have sex outside of the bedroom in order to keep it spicy?
26 comments:
- Jay said...
- October 22, 2010 at 12:12 PM
- Jaz said...
DANG! I was so close!
- October 22, 2010 at 12:14 PM
- The Fury said...
1. Mostly dirty sex...I mean come on who are you talking to??
2. I'm ALWAYS way more concerned with pleasing than being pleased. Always!
3. Write that thing they used to do that I hated on a post-it note and put it somewhere I can't get my eyes from (like a computer screen) then I'm happy their ass is gone!
4. My favorite sex prop is Location location location. Followed closely by clothing, then a sex toy for her, food, handcuffs/scarves then whips/
5. I've run a light or three
6. Since women seem to love men in suits, I'd wear an impeccably tailored suit and a matching mask
7. Yep I kiss her after giving or receiving, sometimes I'd kiss her during.
8. I'd keep it to myself. Flirting is flirting. It's not a behind the Starbucks counter blowjob. Be flattered and keep it moving
9. Say thank you, give her a kiss then ask her where she thinks I should wear it...LOL
10. The bed is underrated. However, that's all about who you're having sex with. As I said before I'm about locations, but if you're partner sucks, the sex will suck...wherever - October 22, 2010 at 12:32 PM
- Stef said...
Fury is so nasty :)
- October 22, 2010 at 12:47 PM
- Jay said...
1. Both. It starts out dirty and then gets proper for some reason, gotta fix that.
2. Pleasing...always.
3. I run or work out incessantly. It helps me think and focus - and then I wind up in shape and looking better than when I was in the dreaded relationship :)
4. Food
5. I've run a red light...or three (yep, I bit that from Fury)
6. Women seem to like the whole fireman, policeman thing...so I'd go with that...then strip it off.
7. Yep, both!
8. No need to share that. Why piss her off?
9. Say thank you, give a kiss and wear it proudly.
10. I'm with Fury, if the sex is good it'll be good anywhere. I have no problem with a nice cozy bed. - October 22, 2010 at 12:52 PM
- Stef said...
1. Proper I guess
2. I'm concerned with how I look, if I smell funny, what he's thinking. I think that always takes away from the enjoyment for myself, so I guess I'm more concerned with pleasing him.
3. I cry.
4. a blindfold
5. yep!
6. Betty Boop
7. I prefer not to be kissed after he's been down there. That's just me. And everytime I've gone down on a guy, he never wants to kiss afterwards...so it's mutual.
8. I won't tell, because I'd consider that just for me to enjoy. No point.
9. I can't lie, I'd probably say thank you, give him a kiss and secretly return it. I don't like wasting stuff, and the dude I'm seeing probably wouldn't notice anyway.
10. Sex is never underrated anywhere if you ask me. I'll take a cozy bed any day! - October 22, 2010 at 1:04 PM
- Yolanda said...
1. Dirtaaaay dirtaaaaaay
2. I'm a pleaser [calls therapist]
3. Cry. Then delete all references of him.
4. Food, clothing, gadgets, mouth (BAM!)
5. Nope but I'd cross that bridge when Mr. Right comes along
6. French Maid (always wanted to wear one) closely followed by Wonder Woman
7. Yes
8. Not a bragger. I might tell my bestie though but randoms don't need to know.
9. A gift? You mean something I didn't buy? LOL. I'd wear it...for him. Then tell him I gained a few and it no longer fits. #win-win
10. Don't sleep on good sheets (not literally...you know what I mean) - October 22, 2010 at 1:19 PM
- Yolanda said...
LOL @ Stef's "smell funny." I think about that too. I keep my baby wipes on deck :-)
- October 22, 2010 at 1:33 PM
- Stef said...
I know! Me too! Women don't always smell the same each week of the month :) TMI! - October 22, 2010 at 2:52 PM
- The Cable Guy said...
1. DIRTY...lots o'dirty!
2. I'm concerned my damn breath don't stink. I am ALWAYS the pleaser.
3. I hate to admit it, but I usually have sex with another woman (or two) to get over the woman I really care about. I'm trying to break out of that. #dontjudgeme
4. food
5. If we're TOGETHER, I run all red lights. Doesn't bother me.
6. Some sort of camouflage.
7. Yes and yes!
8. Why tell your girl that? So she can give you the side eye everytime you make a Starbucks run?
9. I say thank you, give her a kiss and tell her I love it...then put it in the closet.
10. I'll have sex anywhere. - October 22, 2010 at 3:08 PM
- -V- said...
1. "Dirty" is relative.
So is "proper" ;-)
2. When you please her, she'll please you.
3. Good old fashioned Ho Down.
4. They usually have a "friend" in the top drawer.
5. Yes.
6. Fig Leaf.
7. Not after a "money shot."
8. Keep it to yourself. Women are too insecure as it is.
9. Say thank you, give/her a kiss and wear it proudly ... once.
10. Good sex anywhere is spicy. - October 22, 2010 at 3:10 PM
- Jaz said...
What is a money shot? am I just slow? - October 22, 2010 at 3:12 PM
- -V- said...
@ Jaz: otherwise known as a facial.
- October 22, 2010 at 3:49 PM
- The Fury said...
@Stef - I'm only a little bit really damn nasty. LOL
@Jay - You're welcome to the answer. Use it well.
Ladies, You should never ever be concerned if you smell funny. If you are, by all means run take a shower and come back if you can. LOL - October 22, 2010 at 3:55 PM
- Brooke said...
or take a shower together first ;)
- October 22, 2010 at 4:18 PM
- Jaz said...
a facial?
- October 22, 2010 at 4:19 PM
- The Cable Guy said...
Damn Jaz! JIZZ on your face. ALL OVER IT!
- October 22, 2010 at 4:22 PM
- Stef said...
And I thought I was slow... :)
jus jokes Jaz! LOL! - October 22, 2010 at 4:26 PM
- Jaz said...
OOHHH!!! Ok! But why do they call it the "money shot"?
- October 22, 2010 at 4:27 PM
- The Cable Guy said...
- October 22, 2010 at 4:31 PM
- Yolanda said...
It's the "bankable" shot in porn.
That's why you always actually "see" the dude, shall we say, "arriving" in pornos. (or so I've heard) - October 22, 2010 at 4:33 PM
- Jaz said...
Maybe I need to watch more porn. Thanks Yolanda!
Forget you cable dude! LOL!
so now I know, shoot me! LOL!
I guess I should answer now:
1. I guess I have "proper" sex. Whatever that means.
2. I'm usually too nervouse to worry about either.
3. I scream and plot his death and where to hide the body. But I don't actually act on it :)
4. I don't think I've ever used a prop.
5. No, never. It makes me feel icky!
6. a vampiress...is that a word?
7. Um...after talk of money shots and facials, NO!
8. I won't tell him, it'll be my secret.
9. I thank him, and give him a kiss and where it proudly.
10. I love high thread count sheets! - October 22, 2010 at 4:42 PM
- Brooke said...
Jaz is so cute :-)
- October 22, 2010 at 4:47 PM
- The Cable Guy said...
Brooke never answers her own questions...
- October 22, 2010 at 4:49 PM
- Brooke said...
I knew you were gonna say that Cable Guy...I was getting around to it!
1. Dirty or proper? Like V said, that's relative...and it depends on who your partner is. I'm willing to guess that my idea of "dirty" is R. Kelley or Prince's idea of "proper." LOL!
2. Pleasing...because I want them to come back for more ;)
3. Depends on why we broke up. If I've been cheated on or lied to, I tend to get over that very quickly - anger usually helps with that :-) Otherwise, I usually cry, and then talk my sister's ear off about it...cry some more, and then I'm over it.
4. Probably music...if that can be considered one?
5. I have...
6. Like Yolanda, I'd be a French Maid. I actually had a French Maid costume back in the day...complete with feather duster :)
7. I have... :) But I can see why someone wouldn't want to after the "money shot facial" LOL! Jaz is so cute :)
8. I don't see the need to share – what would you be achieving with that exactly? Making the other person feel insecure/angry/upset? Or would I be fishing for a reaction that would make ME feel better/desired/attractive because I'M insecure? I think flirting is healthy so long as it doesn't cross the line, in which case I'd simply feel flattered and leave it at that.
9. Thank him, kiss him, and wear it proudly...in the house. Then I'd whisper the names of some of my favorite stores in his ear while he was sleeping :)
10. Like everyone has stated, good sex can happen anywhere. BUT I'm all about a cozy bed. I don't mind sex on the couch, on a chair, outside, wherever...but if you put me in a bed with 1,000 thread count sheets, I can do some thangs :-) LOL! - October 22, 2010 at 5:04 PM
- The Cable Guy said...
a french maid? Me likey!
I have some spots that need cleaning :)
we can start elsewhere and end up in the cozy bed :) - October 22, 2010 at 5:38 PM


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Raman and AFM (Atomic Force Microscope) analysis can be combined on a single microscope system, opening interesting new capabilities and providing enhanced information on sample composition and structure by collecting physical and chemical information on the same sample area. Co-localized AFM-Raman measurement is the sequential or simultaneous acquisition of overlapped SPM (Scanning Probe Microscope) and Raman maps with pixel-to-pixel correspondence in the images.
On one hand, AFM and other SPM techniques like STM, Shear-Force or Normal-Force, provide topographic, mechanical, thermal, electrical, and magnetic properties down to the molecular resolution (~ nm, over μm2 area), on the other hand confocal Raman spectroscopy and imaging provides specific chemical information about the material, with diffraction limited spatial resolution (sub-micron).


text:
Many road assistance interventions are due to ignition system breakdowns, among which a failure to turn on. With our original batteries, you make sure that you and your travelling companions enjoy the peace of mind you need. Produced with lead/calcium alloy laminated grilles, they require no maintenance, however periodic checks may be required as instructed in the handbook
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The 400 billion (!) dollar industry of medical devices is director Kirby Dick's latest fascination (Oscar winner Twist of Faith, Oscar nominated The Invisible War). This is one of those documentaries that will raise your awareness about a topic from 0 to I-should-do-something, as the number of victims and the negative impacts these devices are having are astounding. Of course, just like with any other careless American industries, greed, money, and lobbying are the culprits. This is an important watch that will probably come in very handy when you or a close one needs a medical device.
Genre: Documentary


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Stone colour: Emerald
The princess hoops are everything that the Empress hoop is, only a smaller version for those who want all that fierce, latin fabulosity but in a smaller package. Ain't nothing wrong with that, girl. We gotcha!
These hoops are suspended on a stainless steel fishhook earring, and with a little rubber safety-back should stay on even during the fastest and tightest spins.
Encrusted in size ss12 genuine sparkle® crystal, these hoops have a diameter of approximately 4.5 cm (1 3/4 inches).


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Violence broke out on Chilliwack streets Friday night, with several reports of stabbings.
Police say two people are dead and another injured.
"Just after 10 p.m. the Chilliwack RCMP responded to a report of an altercation at the corner of Young Road and Yale road," said the Integrated Homicide Investigative Team in a statement released Saturday. "When police arrived, they located three victims, all of which had suffered stab wounds. Two of the three victims succumbed to their injuries, and the altercation was deemed a double homicide.
There was a heavy RCMP presence in the area of Five Corners downtown at about 10:30 p.m., along Princess Ave. between Young Road and Fletcher Street.
The downtown was busy with pedestrians at the time with the first Party in the Park ending about a half an hour before. Several people reported hearing about stabbings.
The investigation is in its early stages, and it is unknown if the altercation was targeted. Currently, the victims names cannot be released as the next of kin have yet to be notified.
IHIT is working with the Chilliwack RCMP, the Integrated Forensic Identification Section, and the BC Coroner's Service. The area surrounding the crime scene will be closed for an undetermined around of time as investigators continue to gather evidence.
Watch this website for further information as this story develops.


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Final Australian ratings for The Name of the Doctor
Saturday, 1 June 2013 - Reported by Adam Kirk
The Name of the Doctor has picked up an additional 140,000 time-shifted Australian viewers, giving it a final, or consolidated, ratings average of 953,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. This was the fifth largest number of time-shifted viewers for a program broadcast on Sunday 19 May. The final or consolidated ratings includes all 'time-shifted' viewers who record the program and watch it within a week.
Based on these final figures, The Name of the Doctor was the second highest rating ABC program of the day and the ninth highest rating program of the day overall (it was also the ninth highest rating program based on its overnight figures of 812,000 viewers). These ratings do not include regional viewers.
Media Links: TV Tonight