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VPS hosting has certainly caused a lot of confusion among business owners who are looking for proper hosting services for their sites. The biggest source of confusion comes from the fact that many people don't understand what VPS hosting is and how it can benefit their business. To help make things a bit clearer, we're going to explain the topic of VPS hosting as simply as we can, as well as introduce a high quality hosting service to help you get started.
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This type of hosting combines shared and dedicated hosting, allowing the users to get the best out of both worlds. Those who are building their site for the first time or those who don't have a need for expensive dedicated servers can take advantage of VPS hosting as a cheaper and effective solution.
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20 Of BTS's Wildest Moments At The "PERMISSION TO DANCE ON STAGE" Concerts In L.A.
On November 27th and 28th, BTS held their first two PERMISSION TO DANCE ON STAGE – LA concerts at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California. For hours, BTS entertained fans with their jaw-dropping performances and hilarious antics. Here are 20 of their wildest moments!
1. Make some what kind of noise, RM?
BTS IS BACK SAYS OUR LEADER!!! pic.twitter.com/ml6aucMkID
— TETRIS (@itstetrisbish) November 28, 2021
2. Jin cosplaying as Young Hee…
…aka the murder doll from Squid Game.
They are playing red light, green light and Jin is the doll😂😂😭😭
.#Stage_For_ARMY #BTSARMY #BTS #PTD_ON_STAGE_LA pic.twitter.com/Or8jcSbwy8
— krystal⁷ (D-6) | grammy nominated aoty BTS (@bangtangrlhere) November 29, 2021
⭕🔺⭐☂ pic.twitter.com/CBYt4LriqH
— 湯 (@_ma1c0) November 29, 2021
3. V's adorable cursing
Taehyung's ending ment
It's cutest "holy shit , damn" I've ever heard 😭
— taehyung pics⚡ (@taehyungpic) November 28, 2021
4. RM's got his priorities straight.
NAMJOON PUSHING JUNGKOOK OUT THE WAY TO GET NEXT TO MEGAN I CANT BREATHE pic.twitter.com/RmjLrbj4V0
— bebe (@miubebes) November 29, 2021
5. BTS's stylists: "Shirtless? Say no more."
JUNGKOOK???????? pic.twitter.com/al7W5Uu67h
— juls (@jikookheart) November 28, 2021
THE HD CAM OF JIMIN UNBUTTONING HIS BLAZER 😩pic.twitter.com/RSbOZ2R6zF
— ziminKitty (@jiminticaI) November 28, 2021
6. J-Hope getting his flirt on with Megan Thee Stallion
YALL WHY DID HOSEOK DO THAT???? pic.twitter.com/4q04gulcYF
— star boy 🖇 ⁷ (@aije0n) November 29, 2021
7. Jimin seeing himself in the audience
jimin's reaction to seeing someone in the crowd wearing a blanket with his face on it 😩❤🔥 pic.twitter.com/z3KUZfOUQq
— 𝑺𝑱𝑴 (@stussyjimin) November 29, 2021
8. The real OTP: Jin x Smoke Machine
seokjin having the time of his life with that smoke machine 😭 so cute pic.twitter.com/jmV2dOGklj
— mina⁷ (@EUPH0RIAL0VE) November 28, 2021
9. Just Suga things
THE WAY HE THREW THE BOTTLE CAP AND THEN POURED THE WATER ON HIMSELF FKEJJSKSNSKSKSJ #SUGA pic.twitter.com/vujKka2u9v
— ✿민윤기가만안도(슈마)✿ (@novemberSUGA) November 29, 2021
10. V's reaction to kicking a ball at fans
kim taehyung's sequence after he accidentally kicked the ball it's the "are you ok?" for me pic.twitter.com/Ly5qIDC4Jc
— .·͙☽ (@taeteland) November 28, 2021
11. Clowning Jimin like it's 2016
they will NEVER stop clowning jimin for this part of the choreo im crying 😭pic.twitter.com/UQ4HfSthoR
— cherry⁷ 🎂 (@chucklesbts) November 29, 2021
12. RM's full-body wiggle
HELP LMAO pic.twitter.com/p2hFRneqcZ
— MJ🧚🏽⁷(•᷄ɞ•᷅)✨is seeing BTS! 💖 (@jimin4chairman) November 29, 2021
13. Jin losing his mind over this fanboy
SEOKJIN WAS LAUGHING HARD BECAUSE A FANBOY WAS DANCING CRAZY INFRONT OF HIM pic.twitter.com/gobFMrFDkT
— pinky⁷ (@ky_lovesTANNIES) November 29, 2021
14. Jungkook trying to sing into his water bottle…again!
jungkook confusing the water bottle for his mic again, he's so cute 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/MrYbp6tTnX
— ً (@archiveforJK) November 29, 2021
15. V casually giving J-Hope an English lesson
the way taehyung said "hopefully, hopefully…" then hobi was like "???" thinking tae was referring to him 😭 then taehyung went "no jhope. HOPEFULLY." PLEASE I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING THEY'RE SO CUTE 😭😭pic.twitter.com/Bci8eLHReI
— moy⁷🍓 (@tanjimnie) November 29, 2021
16. J-Hope making ARMYs go feral by going feral himself…
did hobi just bark at us pic.twitter.com/x3VE8Q6O3C
— katie ✨ ptd in la 🌴 (@bluedabadeeside) November 29, 2021
17. Suga spitting these undeniable facts:
YOONGI POINTING AT MEGAN WHEN SAYING "GOT THAT RIGHT BODY AND THAT RIGHT MIND" pic.twitter.com/5gAVQEbCrR
— rahma (@jhope4L) November 29, 2021
18. Jimin retrieving a wandering Jungkook
JUNGKOOK FORGOT THE SECOND BOW SO JIMIN PULLED HIM BACK TO DO IT 😭 pic.twitter.com/EyGZe0XkFi
— juls (@jikookheart) November 29, 2021
19. This life-changing experience
Seeing Jin's hip thrust right in front of my eyes was life changing…. #KimSeokjin #Jin #PTD_ON_STAGE_LA #bts pic.twitter.com/IbvNzFz3Hn
— SEEING BTS TODAY (@agustdznutz) November 29, 2021
20. V and RM's "Dynamite" improv
whatever taehyung does, namjoon plays along 😭 pic.twitter.com/x8z2IM9aWF
— rayna⁷ ⛅ today! (@nycnamjoon) November 29, 2021

subset: commoncrawl


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AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, 'THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.'"Hebrews 3:11(NASB)
Israel's wandering in the wilderness was the result of unbelief and rebellion. God had brought them out of Egypt and was ready to give them great victory in the Promised Land, but disobedience caused their entrance into the land of promise to be delayed for forty years. Instead of trusting God to fight the giants in the land, their faith in God failed, and He swore in His wrath they would not enter His promised rest.
This event is recorded in Numbers and is referenced in both Old and New Testaments as a warning NOT to follow in Israel's apostate footsteps. Though saved from Egyptian slavey, they failed to receive all that God had planned for them. They had been redeemed from Egyptian bondage, but had to live a defeated and barren life, wandering aimlessly around the desert.
Israel's failure to enter God's rest is a cautionary tale which warns Christians not to follow their example of unbelief: Redeemed but living a defeated life on earth; Saved, but forfeiting all that God planned to do in us and through us during our journey in life; Saved from eternal death by faith in Christ, but living a defeated Christian life and forfeiting our spiritual inheritance.
Despite witnessing God's amazing power in bringing them out of Egypt and in-spite of the destruction of their enemies in the Red Sea, Israel lost faith in God's power to defeat the giants of Canaan and the victory they could have enjoyed was forfeited forever. Because of their unbelief, the entire generation was buried in the wilderness, never having enjoyed the 'rest' the Lord had promised them.
Some people mistakenly assume that this faithless generation of Israel who were denied entrance into the Promised Land must have lost their salvation. But it was not salvation that was lost, but the sufficient strength that God supplies to all His redeemed children. Because of unbelief, they forfeited the power to live a victorious life when surrounded by trials and difficulties.
The warning of this cautionary tale is that we do not to lose faith in the precious promises of God, for He has promised that His grace is sufficient in every difficult circumstance of life, and no matter what 'giants' we may encounter as we journey through life, we have His assurance of a victorious life with spiritual blessings - and rest for our soul.
May we take to heart this warning in both the Old and New Testament to hold fast to the faith we have in Christ and to trust in God's unchanging Word, for He has promised a rest for the people of God, and that rest is found in Christ.
Heavenly Father, thank You for the many warnings in Your Word to trust in the Lord with all my heart and not to lean on my own understanding. Help me never to allow terrors from without and fears from within to cause my faith in Your Word to fail. Thank You that Jesus is my promised rest. Keep me looking to Him and trusting in Your never-failing Word. In Jesus' name, AMEN.
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It's D-Day Dream Teamers!

It's been a horror week for injuries so get ready to do your homework and make some educated changes or trades...

As usual, the Lone Scout has done the dirty work for you - but if you want to delve a little deeper, you can always start by monitoring our NRL.com Casualty Ward for the latest injury updates.

Petero Civoniceva ($239,000)
Injury: Toe
Due back: Round 24
Verdict: This is a no-brainer. The big unit won't score points from the grandstand. Ditch him now.
Suggested replacements in similar price range: Kade Snowden ($259,700), Dan Hunt ($249,900), Nathan Cayless ($255,700).

Michael Weyman ($211,200)
Injury: Ankle
Due back: Round 23
Verdict: It was good while it lasted but it seems Weyman's unusually long stint injury-free is finally over. Drop him like it's hot.
Suggested replacements in similar price range: Jeremy Latimore ($127,100) for a good value cheapie, Shane Tronc ($235,500), Aaron Payne ($231,900).

Mat Rogers ($188,000)
Injury: Ribs
Due back: Next week... but who knows.
Verdict: When you buy 'seasoned' (read: old) players like Rogers, you have to expect injuries like this. If you want to roll the dice that he'll be back and last the rest of the season... keep him. He's a nice high-scoring centre/wing, and a cheap bench five-eighth (depending on which position you have him in).
Suggested replacements in similar price range: Brett Delaney ($192,700), Jarryd Hayne ($192,300)

Karmichael Hunt ($81,000)
Injury: Ankle
Due back: Round 18
Verdict: If you have him and want to save your trades, keep him as a bench back-up. If you have trades left... you need to go to bed with a mirror and wake up to yourself! Why do you still have him? He's averaging less than 15 points and is often is single digits.
Suggested replacements in similar price range: Jason Nightingale ($89,900) - he's coming off the bench as a forward and could score well if Wayne Bennett gives him the minutes, Josh Dugan ($115,500).

Aaron Cannings ($151,700)
Injury: Hamstring
Due back: "Couple of weeks"
Verdict: He's a nice bench forward who is capable of posting an occasional high score, but if you can spare the trade - I'd be flicking him.
Suggested replacements in similar price range: Jeremy Latimore ($127,100), Jon Green ($121, 800).

Now that the nuts and bolts are out of the way, it's time for my weekly 'Value Picks'.

Jon Green (Dragons)
Position: Front row
Current price: $121,800
Season average: 24.00
Last week: 30
The scoop: The loss of Michael Weyman has opened the door for young Green to step into a starting role at the Dragons. Don't expect 50+ scores, but if you need a handy bench prop he's an absolute bargain at $121,800.

Anthony Tupou (Sharks)
Position: Second row
Current Price: $222,200
Season average: 41.33
Last week: 44
The scoop: OK. So he's not technically a cheapie. But this 'heart-on-his-sleeve' player is way under market value, and mostly courtesy of an injury-prone period which saw his workload decrease and value plummet from $306,000 to his current $222,200.

Jeremy Latimore (Eels)
Position: Front row
Current price: $127,200
Season average: 26.40
Last week: 28
The scoop: Again, if you want a 50+ prop, Jeremy isn't your man. But if you need a scoring bench player to survive any injuries through the final rounds (while earning some money along the way), Latimore is a useful option.

And now we come to my favourite time of the week... Question Time.

Preston writes:
Hi Lone Scout,
I was wondering who would make a better captain. I've got Jamie Soward, David Stagg or Cam Smith in the line-up for the captaincy role.

I think many people under-estimate the importance of captaincy selection, so I'm glad you've brought it up, Preston. Often it can mean the difference of twenty or thirty points - enough to win, or lose, you a head-to-head game.

To be honest, it should be a weekly proposition.

For example, when does David Stagg score his most points? Is it when the Dogs dominate possession and rack up a big score? No - it's when they're locked in an arm-wrestle and he grinds out 55 tackles in a desperate attempt to keep the line tight.

What about Cam Smith? Well, he's got the advantage of being a kicker, a playmaker, a tackler and a goal kicker. If Melbourne posts seven or eight tries, he's going to bag at least 10 or 12 points from goals alone. Not to mention that he'll often be the man to create the line-breaks and tries.

You would normally assume that Origin would wear down a player and would negatively impact on their points, but in terms of Smith (and Gidley) - he's just a machine.

As for this week? Well, Soward scored a massive 79 against the Roosters last time they met. I'd be relying on him to go close this time around.

K-Dog writes:
Hey mate,
I've got three trades left for the rest of the season and I'm tossing up trading Michael Crocker for Nathan Smith. Have next to nothing left in the bank.
I saw smith posted a couple mid-50 scores in a row but I'm weary of Luke Lewis coming back to take his spot.
Do you think Smith is a good buy in light of the risk of Lewis taking his spot?

Wassup, K-Dog? You make a fair point about Smith posting back-to-back 50's but it's not enough to convince me he's a long-term prospect. He's had plenty of game-time all season and hadn't done too much. That said, the loss of big Petrol Seventy-cents-a-litre could require him to step up the workload.

If you're low on trades, as you say, I'd be sticking with Crocker. He'll miss one more game with Origin, but he's getting better and better with fitness and is a genuine 80-minute player. Long term, I'm confident he'll rack up a stack of 40+ scores. Nice suggestion... but save the trade in this case.

Bill writes:
Hi Mr. Scout,
I have eight trades and $43,400 left.
I am currently 2nd in my league on 19 points, (I can't believe I had a draw) and my goal is to win.
But I can't do that with my current team, 1st place scores a lot more points than me every week. I play him in Rd22.
Do you think I should trade Benji Marshall for Scott Porter this week while the price is good?
And what do you think about swapping Petero for Cameron Smith, after I free up some cash?

You've got this game down-pat, don't you Billy-boy? Your suggestions are spot on, if a little late. You still have eight trades so I'd be axing Benji Marshall ($221,200) for Scott Porter ($213,600). (You missed the boat on the Porter trade, but better late than never).

This leaves you with $51,000 to replace big Petero Civoniceva ($239,000). For $290,000, you won't get Smith this week. But I'm sure you can find a way to squeeze him in after Origin III.

Peter writes:
Hi Lone Scout,
Looking for some advice.
I have $75,000 available and 9 trades remaining.
I traded out Russell Packer for Nathan Friend last week; was thinking about that or Crocker for Hindmarsh.
What's the likely hood of Jake Friend being stood down after the assault charges over the weekend? I think all I can do is squeeze some extra points out of FRF and 2RF. Is one of Crocker or J Friend to Hilder / Corey Parker a worthwhile trade?

The Jake Friend scenario is a tough one. To be honest, it's anyone's guess. The Roosters have stuck with him, so I'd suggest you do too. While he's starting at hooker, he should continue to score well, and there's no reason to believe that will end anytime soon.

As for Crocker for Hindmarsh... well, you'll never regret trading in Nathan Hindmarsh. But is it worth the massive $100k+ extra to bring him in? It's risky... but hey, it's your Dream Team. If you want him, buy him.

And finally, a shout-out to the Black Muff Ninja. This is the email he bet I wouldn't publish.

Lone Scout,
I was amused to see how you used my email last week. I knew you would give me a run and use it as a worse case scenario for leaving no trades.
My man, you mis-read my squad last week, I have no trades left but here is my squad again for you...

Ben Hornby, Kirt Gidley, Willie Isa, Mathew Wright, Greg Inglis, Simon Mannering, James McManus, Beau Scott, Alex Glenn, Terrence Campese, Daniel Mortimer, Luke Walsh, Marc Herbert, Bronson Harrison, Cameron Smith, Matty Hilder, Jake Friend, Nathan Hindmarsh (c), Trent Waterhouse, David Stagg, Alan Tongue, Richie Fa'aoso, George Rose, Jeremy Latimore, James Tamou.

I scored 730 this week, 750 the week before the bye, I'm soaring up the charts to 450th and it won't stop.
I will continue to kick on with NO TRADES BROTHER and don't worry I'll let you know how I'm travelling as you wrote me off last week in your emails.
I told you I'm a gun. I am a special talent. Watch this space.

I like your style, Black Muff Ninja. (You aren't a former Dragon-turned-boxer, by any chance, are you?)

I also like your team. Keep us posted throughout the year so we can test the 'Trade Saver' theory.

Here's my offer to you... if you continue to "kick on with NO TRADES BROTHER" and drive home the brand new Toyota... you can have your very own weekly column on NRL.com next year as our Dream Team guru.

Sound fair? Good luck, mate! And good luck to the rest of you... remember, while I'm not off scouting ... and being alone ... I'm more than happy to cure all of your Dream Team headaches.

Email me your queries by clicking here.

Apologies to all the emailers I didn't get to this week... scouting is a busy business and I always work alone. Keep them coming and I'll do my best to get to them next Tuesday.

Until then, good luck, but more importantly, good coaching!

Scouts honour,
Lone Scout

PS. Did you know you can check your Dream Team LIVE scores while you're at the footy, the pub or discreetly under the table while dining out with your better half? That's right - you can check your LIVE scores on your mobile!

Just enter wap.fantasy.nrl.com into your mobile phone browser.

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National Rugby League respects and honours the Traditional Custodians of the land and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and future. We acknowledge the stories, traditions and living cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on the lands we meet, gather and play on.


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17 September 2014Chloe Munro, Chair
Many of you are clients of ours and you'll be familiar with some or all of the legislation we administer.
Essentially we are an independent economic regulator with an environmental objective.
We administer the market and regulatory mechanisms which create incentives for business to measure, manage, reduce or offset carbon emissions and for investment in renewable energy.
We summarise our purpose as "accelerating carbon abatement for Australia".
If there's one thing I hear more from business than any other, it's a plea for policy certainty.
However, the reality is that business interests are the first to argue for change if they disagree with the policy settings.
And the reality is that if events do not pan out as forecast when policies are made, the settings are likely to be re-examined.
As an independent regulator, I can't hold out a promise of policy certainty, but I can offer certainty as to how the polices are applied.
We've built an excellent reputation for the way we go about our job based on active engagement with our clients.
Our first priority is to administer the law as it is. We keep our clients informed at every step about what they need to do to discharge their obligations.
We continue to improve our systems and processes to make it easier to do business with us. We involve our clients in the design decisions and user testing.
We publish plenty of guidance up front and we are open and transparent about the decisions we make.
Where permitted by law we publish data to help decision-making in the market.
Although a lot of change has taken place and more is on the horizon, you can also see a degree of continuity in our schemes.
The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme, which is now in its seventh year of operation, is a trusted and authoritative source of information covering over 60 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.
National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting data will underpin the operations of the Emission Reduction Fund, just as they underpinned the carbon pricing mechanism.
Just a reminder for National Greenhouse and Energy reporters - we are now coming up towards the 31 October deadline for the 2013-14 reporting year. Information is available on our website on the most recent upgrades to our Emissions Energy Reporting System, including to accommodate legislative amendments. Some of you may have already attended webinars we are currently hosting. Look on our website for more details of these.
I appreciate that the imposition and repeal of the carbon tax have been very significant issues for the energy industry. This has not stood in the way of a constructive relationship with all our energy sector clients and exceptionally high rates of voluntary compliance.
Fortunately perhaps for me, the downstream pricing issues from the carbon tax repeal are the purview of the ACCC and I won't discuss them today.
For the carbon tax itself, we've achieved close to 100 per cent compliance right across the board. We expect this to continue through to the final true-up in February 2015.
Just as the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme continues in its current form, so to a large extent does the Carbon Farming Initiative. To date, the Carbon Farming Initiative has had only limited relevance to the energy sector, however it provides the architecture for the crediting arm of the Emissions Reduction Fund and it will have much broader application in future.
Before I discuss what is planned for the Emissions Reduction Fund, I'd like to spend a few minutes on the Renewable Energy Target.
First of all, as Ministers have pointed out, the report of the expert panel is a report to the government, not by the government. I don't make any assumptions about how the government might respond to the recommendations or what changes, if any, might be legislated through the parliament.
What is clear, however, is that on any scenario short of outright repeal, the basic architecture would remain in place. The offer of administrative continuity may be cold comfort to those who fear significant discontinuity to their business interests. Nevertheless we do see a role for the Regulator in smoothing any transition that might occur.
So let me just run through the narrative that I believe was established by the report of the expert panel:
That's a tick for the Regulator.
Nevertheless, the expert panel sounds a warning based on the un-forecast success of the small scale scheme and the un-forecast decline in electricity demand.
These observations beg the question whether the Renewable Energy Target has been too successful.
I have here extracts from the report:
That is the debate that the RET review has put into play: do the objectives for the Renewable Energy Target remain appropriate?
As I've commented before, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 is predicated on a view that increasing the proportion of renewables in our energy mix is a good thing in its own right or that it will have long term benefits that are not otherwise captured in economic modelling.
This is now up for debate alongside the distributional question. Which players in the industry should wear the impact of change?
The panel report has as its first recommendation:
And here is the link to the Emissions Reduction Fund:
The report of the expert panel is not the first to point out that renewable electricity generation is not necessarily the lowest cost source of carbon abatement. We do expect that the Emissions Reduction Fund will be able to purchase abatement at a lower price than the estimates of the average cost per tonne of abatement from renewable electricity generation.
Nevertheless, policies, including the Emissions Reduction Fund, are required to meet Australia's 5 per cent CO2-e emissions reduction target. Electricity generation contributes over a third of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. Even allowing for the very modest reduction we've seen over the last couple of years, it doesn't seem likely that Australia's emissions reductions targets could be met without some reduction in emissions intensity of electricity production and consumption.
In 2012, Australia's emissions were 555 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-e), with these emissions sources spread across the economy.
The dynamics of the energy market more generally will have a profound influence on Australia's emissions trajectory. Gas pricing, network regulation, the disruptive potential of battery technology and the internet of things, along with the rise of the prosumer, will all have an impact. It can't be assumed that all these influences will be benign from an emissions perspective.
I would therefore argue that just as the policy settings for renewables and other climate change measures have been called into question in light of their impact on the energy industry, so the policy settings for the energy industry can, and should, be examined for their impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
As far as I can see, there are three ways in which the energy sector can contribute to the emissions reduction task:
What the RET Review has shown, if it wasn't already well understood, is that while the Renewable Energy Target could incentivise investment in additional renewable electricity generation capacity; it could not incentivise decommissioning of older high emissions power stations.
A number of parties are now musing on this question, including most recently the Chairman of AGL, Jeremy Maycock, and the Chair of the Climate Change Authority, Bernie Fraser. Bernie went as far as to suggest that the Emissions Reduction Fund could play a role in this too.
The Emissions Reduction Fund is designed to provide incentives to adopt new practices and technologies which reduce emissions.
It has three components: crediting emissions reductions, purchasing emissions reductions, and safeguarding emissions reductions.
Each of these components could have an impact on energy markets, depending on how market participants and their customers take up the opportunities and respond to the safeguard.
Projects are eligible to participate if they are meet some basic additionality tests – they're new, they go beyond standard business activities and they are not required by regulation or funded by other government programmes. They also need to comply with a method which allows the abatement to be measured.
When an eligible project submits a report on the abatement it has achieved, it receives one Australian carbon credit unit for each tonne of CO2 equivalent of sequestered carbon or avoided emissions. This is exactly how the Carbon Farming Initiative works today.
Unlike the carbon farming initiative, the Emissions Reduction Fund will be open to a much wider range of methods beyond the land sector. The scheme will apply to a wide range of productivity-enhancing activities such as:
Proponents of very large projects, which have the potential to deliver more than 250,000 tonnes of abatement per year, can propose the priority development of bespoke methods. This would certainly be necessary for any proposal to retire generation capacity. While overcapacity persists and because of the pooled nature of electricity markets, the measurement question is not trivial.
The Clean Energy Regulator will enter into contracts with project owners to purchase Australian carbon credit units from them over a period of years. We've already consulted with stakeholders on the standard form of these contracts – they're on straightforward commercial terms based on payment for delivery against an agreed schedule.
Most of the feedback has been about contract length –which the government is currently considering – and whether the contract should be firm or non-firm. We intend to allow a modest degree of flexibility in this regard but the contract is not simply a put option. However the contractor is not tied to their own project and can deliver Australian carbon credit units from any source. We have seen a very healthy secondary market develop in our existing schemes and we see a role for it in the Emissions Reduction Fund too.
Turning to price: our goal is simply to buy as much abatement as we can for the funds available.
Purchasing takes place through a process which selects between offers purely on price. The White Paper specifies a simple single-round sealed bid process for the initial auctions. We will have the flexibility to adapt the process as the market develops.
To participate in an auction, you'll need to have an eligible project and agree to the contract terms in advance. We'll assess the credibility of your proposed delivery schedule, before you can register for the auction. This will prevent the auction from being distorted by offers based on highly unrealistic assumptions or projects which have no hope of proceeding. We're planning this step now and we will consult on the minimum information necessary and the best way to capture it.
The auction itself will be a very simple process.
The Clean Energy Regulator will accept offers in order of unit price up to a limit of 80 per cent of the volume of abatement offered at that auction.
Having a cut-off point will enhance competition and encourage bidders to offer the lowest price at which it would be worth their while to carry out their abatement project.
We will pay as bid and as a result we expect to purchase at a range of price points. Large projects will have a significant influence on the average prices and so we will be particularly concerned to see them priced competitively.
Once both the Regulator and the market have better information about prices offered and accepted it is likely that a more sophisticated auction format will be required to force price disclosure.
From consultations, we expect to see a few different business models emerging:
The third pillar is a mechanism to lock in the gains made through the purchasing mechanism by constraining growth in emissions elsewhere in the economy. The safeguard mechanism will apply only to the largest emitters and will work through the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting framework. Businesses covered by the safeguard will be required to keep their emissions below a set baseline.
Emissions baselines will be set using data reported under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme.
They will be based on absolute emissions over a historical period. To accommodate factors such as natural variability in emissions, production levels and changes in the types of inputs used, safeguard baselines will be set using the highest level of reported emissions for a facility over the historical period 2009–10 to 2013–14.
The Government has indicated that it will include flexibility to accommodate significant expansions in production, and to establish baselines for new facilities.
The White Paper acknowledges that a separate approach may be preferable in applying the safeguard to the electricity generation sector, as suggested by the Energy Supply Association of Australia. Further consultation will be required on how such an alternative might work. Issues might include how to take into account the outlook for grid-supplied electricity demand and indeed how to take into account any decisions on the future of the Renewable Energy Target.
The general principle of the Emissions Reduction Fund is that entities covered by the safeguard can take advantage of Emissions Reduction Fund funded projects to bring their emissions below their baseline. However if there are special arrangements for the electricity generation sector, there may be some circularity in the measurement of abatement attributable to a single project against the emissions baseline of the sector as a whole. This is one of many issues that will need to be resolved through consultation.
More broadly, consultations run by the Department of the Environment are underway about how baselines will be set and about compliance options. It's in everyone's interests to have well-considered input so that the new mechanisms can work effectively to achieve their aims. I encourage you all to participate actively in those discussions. You will be affected by the end result as much as any other industry.
Australia does have an emissions reduction target and policies are required to meet Australia's 5 per cent CO2-e emissions reduction target and longer term goals. Both the purchasing and the safeguard components of the Emissions Reduction Fund are necessary to shift our trajectory emissions in the right direction.
It remains to be seen what scale of contribution will be made by The Renewable Energy Target in the future. Regardless of this, other aspects of energy policy and importantly, investment decisions made by your industry will also shape Australia's emissions trajectory.
My job is to administer laws that help accelerate carbon abatement for Australia. Eastern Australia's energy markets have been and will continue to be critical to the success of that endeavour.
About The Clean Energy Regulator
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text:
100 Seymour Rd, Utica, NY 13502
(315) 792-7500
257 Fuller Rd, Albany, NY 12203
(518) 437-8686
Utica and Albany
Student to Faculty Ratio
1 and Only
NYS University to Offer 4-Year Nanoscale Engineering
Nanoscale Science Degrees
SUNY Polytechnic Institute is New York's globally recognized, high-tech educational ecosystem. Cutting-edge nanoscale science programs are offered at the Albany NanoTech campus while majors in business, communications, computer science, engineering, nursing and the arts and sciences are offered at the Utica campus.
SUNY Poly is the world's most advanced, university-driven research enterprise and is ranked number one in the nation by the National Science Foundation in higher education research and development funding by businesses. More than $20 billion in investments, over 300 corporate partners, and multiple technology and innovation hubs provide limitless opportunities for students. SUNY Poly's business programs are among 5% in the world to be accredited by AACSB and its nursing programs are accredited by CCNE. Division III athletics, intramurals and clubs provide an active campus life. Small class sizes, quality programs, successful graduates and an affordable investment make SUNY Poly a popular choice among college-bound students.


text:
In Steven Spielberg's 'Lincoln', Daniel Day-Lewis plays America's favourite president, Honest Abe, as a benign, wise, ageing goat. He can bare his teeth, but prefers to chew doubters into submission, like he's turning over an old can between well-worn teeth. He launches into gentle, storytelling monologues as if employing stealth weaponry: the young and green lap them up; the seasoned and weary roll their eyes, submitting to conversational death by a thousand anecdotes.
This is not a biopic in the usual, cot-to-coffin sense, even if that carved-in-granite title suggests otherwise. Instead, Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner ('Munich') – drawing on a book by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin – delight in the backroom wrangling and public rhetoric that in 1865 led to the 13th Amendment to the US constitution, outlawing slavery. This is Spielberg in the historical mode of 'Schindler's List' and 'Saving Private Ryan' but with his more epic and populist wings intriguingly clipped by a story that mostly takes place over just a few weeks in January 1865.
Kushner's script is a masterpiece of miniature portraiture. The film's thrust is the countdown to a vote as Lincoln and his agents battle to find enough Republicans and Democrats to back the amendment while simultaneously keeping end-of-war negotiations on track. It also offers moving comment on Lincoln's relations with his strong but nervous wife, Mary (Sally Field, below), and his sons (the eldest played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), as well as throwing us into the heart of the frenzied horse trading and high-stakes talk of this critical moment in American history. (Among a vast ensemble of actors playing politicians, there are enough hairpieces and beards on display to stitch together giant wigs for all four heads on Mount Rushmore.)
Especially electric is the push and pull between Kushner's talky, microscopic script – unafraid of politics, long scenes and four walls – and Spielberg's attraction, in cahoots with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, to quietly iconic moments: Lincoln's famous beard silhouetted against the night or the faint shadow of soldiers riding past Ulysses S Grant (Jared Harris) and Lincoln as they chat on a porch. This doesn't mean 'Lincoln' is entirely free of heavy-handed moments – an early encounter between Lincoln and some young soldiers verges on the corny and there's some near-slapstick stuff involving spivvy lobbyists. But mostly Spielberg finds a happy balance between the sober and the stirring, and even John Williams's score is relatively muted.
It's down to Day-Lewis, taking Kushner's many prompts and in Spielberg's reverent glare, to give us a greater sense of the man beyond these few weeks. His Lincoln is flat-footed and heavy-ankled; he shuffles down the White House corridor as if he's dragging chains behind him. His shoulders are drooping, his eyes are weary, but his mind is as sharp as a bayonet. His Lincoln is complex and endearing, never fully likeable but always hugely admirable, and because of these happy contradictions 'Lincoln' works as a snapshot of a great man without ever slipping into a portrait of sainthood.


text:
Although a mathematical Graph can consist of any enumerated type (cities, colors, people, etc.) it is convenient to think of the nodes as non-negative integers {0, 1, 2, ... } with edges being a pair of nodes.
This version of NGraph implements a directed graph (which can also be used as the basis of a undirected graph by storing only edges (i,j) where i < j) without multiple edges or loops (edges from a vertex to itself). These conventions are not as severly limiting as they sound, as there are many simple workarounds to accomodate them.
Finally, it should be noted that NGraph is not a replacement or a substitute for more elaborate graph packages, like the Boost Graph Library (BGL), or the LEDA graph library. These packages are much more sophisticated and complex. NGraph, on the other hand, is a tiny library (several hundred lines of code) meant to demonstrate how one can harness C++ components (like sets and maps from Standard Template Library) to create useful data structures with just a few lines of code.
Note that because this is not a multi-graph (i.e. one that allows repeated
edges) inserting that same edge twice has no effect.
using namespace NGraph;
Graph A;
We can see find out a graph's order and size by calling the
num_vertices() and num_edges(). For example,
One can remove edges by calling
std::cout << "Graph has " << A.num_vertices() << " vertices and "
<< A.num_edges() << " edges.\n";
remove_edge(), e.g.
If the edge is not present in the graph, this operation has no effect. We can
repeatedly remove edges from a graph until it is empty (i.e. its order is zero).
We can also check to see if a given edge is present by calling
contains_edge(), which returns a boolean value true
if the edge exsits, and false otherwise. Likewise, we can remove
vertices with the
remove_vertex() function and it will also
automatically remove all edges from the graph containing that vertex as well.
Once a graph is built, we may use it in expressions, for example:
Graph::vertex a = 4; // a more meaningful type than "unsigned int"
Graph::vertex b = 6; //
A.degree(a); // return the degree at vertex a
A.in_degree(a); // return the number of vertices that point to this one
Graph::vertex_set S = A.out_neighbors(a); // return vertices reached through this one
A.subgraph(S); // return the graph whose edge include all vertices in S
A + B; // return the union of two graphs
cout << A ; // print out graph A onto standard output stream
A straightforward graph format is to maintain a list of the graph's edges as an (i,j) pair (referred to as coordinate list.) While universal scheme, it does not provide an efficient structure for finding vertex neighbors --one would need to scan the whole list to compute this.
Instead, modified graph structures are often implemented to better optimize such operations. One common method is an adjacency list, which is a list of neighbors for each vertex. Another approach would be to use some sort of hashing function, or clustering mechanism to optmize storage and/or accessing cost. Whatever the method used, we would like to able to use the Graph object in the same way. That is, we wouldn't want our application code to be completely dependent on the implementation details of the Graph library. In fact, we would like to keep this issue aside, so we can try several alternative strategies and potentially choose the best one for our case.
We need then, some methodology to walk (or traverse) through the graph in
a way that does make any asummptions about its underlying structure. The
Standard Template Library (STL) faced this very same problem and solve it
quite elegantly with the concept of iterators. These pointer-like
entities allow one to traverse a container without making many assumptions
about the underlying implementation.
A.begin() refers to the
first node, and
A.end() refers to the tail end of the container,
while the ++ operator allows one to jump from one element to the next.
We give an example below.
// for each node in the graph...
for ( Graph::const_iterator p = A.begin(); p != A.end(); p++)
int do = out_degree(p);
int di = in_degree(p);
// identify its neighbors
Graph::vertex_set Si = in_neighbors(p);
Graph::vertex_set So = out_neighbors(p);
// print out each out-going edge
for (Graph::vertex_set::const_iterator t = Si.begin(); t !=Si.end(); t++)
cout << *t << "\n";
cout << "\n";
(Note that we made the variable "N" a double so that the division expression
would be performed as a floating point calculation, rather than integer one.
Also, as we visit each node we count each edge twice, so we need to cut the
numerator in half. This cancels with halving the denominator, so
there is no "2" in computation.)
double cluster_coeff(const Graph &A, const Graph::vertex &a)
Graph::vertex_set &group_of_friends = A.out_neighbors(a);
double N = group_of_friends.size();
return A.subgraph(group_of_friends).size() / (N * (N-1));
A collection of tools and applications based on NGraph can be found at
the Network Graph Toolkit page.
This software was developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) by employees of the Federal Government in the course of their official duties. Pursuant to title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code this software is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain. NIST assumes no responsibility whatsoever for its use by other parties, and makes no guarantees, expressed or implied, about its quality, reliability, or any other characteristic.
We would appreciate acknowledgement if the software is incorporated in redistributable libraries or applications.
Roldan Pozo


text:
Corporation Bank
Eligibility Criteria:
Student should be an Indian National.
Secured admission to professional/ technical courses in India or Abroad through Entrance Test/Merit Based Selection process.
Person already in gainful employment are not eligible for loan under the scheme except for pursuing evening course covered under the scheme of approved institute.
Courses Eligible for Study in India:
Graduation Courses : B.A., B.Com, B.Sc., etc., Post Graduation Courses : Masters and Ph.D., Professional Courses : Engineering, Medical, Agriculture, Veterinary, Law, Dental, Management, Computer, etc.
Computer Certificate Courses of reputed Institutes accredited to Dept. of Electronics or Institutes affiliated to University.
Courses like ICWA, CA, CFA, etc.,Courses conducted by IIM, IIT, IISC, XLRI, NIFT, etc.
Courses Eligible for Study Abroad:
Graduation : For job-oriented professional/ technical courses offered by reputed Universities.
Post Graduation : MCA, MBA, MS, etc.,Courses conducted by CIMA - London, CPA in USA etc.
Loan Amount:
For studies in India, maximum Rs. 10 lacs
For Studies abroad, maximum Rs. 20 lacs
For loans up to Rs.4.0 lacs : No Margin
For loans above Rs.4.0 lacs: Studies in India: 5%, Studies Abroad: 15%
Interest Rate:
For loans upto Rs. 7.5 lakh - 12.25%
For loans above Rs. 7.5 lakh - 11.50%(secured), 12.25%(unsecured)
Repayment will commence one year after completion of course or 6 months after securing a job, whichever is earlier. The loan has to be repaid within a maximum period of 10 years after completion of repayment holiday period.
Upto Rs. 4.00 Lacs : Nil
Above Rs. 4.00 Lacs and upto Rs. 7.50 lakh: Collateral in the form of a suitable third party guarantee.
Above Rs. 7.50 lacs : Co-obligation of parent/guardian/spouse/parent-in-law a long together with tangible collateral security of suitable value along with assignment of future income of the student for payment of instalments and tangible security of suitable value


text:
It's here.
Today is the day that Canada opens the doors to its nationwide legal recreational marijuana market. As you might expect, many investors are focusing like a laser on what happens in the early days of this new market. And that laser focus is aimed at the biggest Canadian marijuana stocks.
A game of musical chairs has been played over the last few months, as different marijuana growers moved up and down in the ranking of the largest Canadian marijuana stocks by market cap. Which stocks are at the top as Canada's adult-use recreational market opens? Let's size up the five biggest Canadian marijuana stocks, which (in alphabetical order) are Aphria (NASDAQOTH: APHQF), Aurora Cannabis (ACB -7.72%), Canopy Growth (CGC -12.02%), Cronos Group (CRON -2.75%), and Tilray (TLRY).
5. Cronos Group
Cronos Group enters the big day with a market cap of close to $2 billion, enough to rank fifth among Canadian marijuana stocks. And it's nearly double the market cap that Cronos claimed at the beginning of 2018.
Right now, Cronos has an annual production capacity of around 6,650 kilograms. But the company is adding a fourth indoor building at its Peace Naturals facility in Ontario that should boost its capacity by 33,500 kilograms per year. Cronos has also partnered with Bert Mucci, owner of Mucci Farms, on a joint venture that will add 70,000 kilograms of annual production. On top of these domestic expansions, Cronos is increasing its growing space in Australia and Israel.
4. Aphria
Aphria takes the No. 4 spot with a market cap of roughly $3.2 billion. Although the company's share price is up by only a single-digit percentage so far in 2018, its market cap has increased by more than 50%. (Issuance of new shares to generate cash explains the difference.)
On day one of Canada's recreational marijuana market, Aphria's annual production capacity totals around 34,500 kilograms. But expansions at its Aphria One and Broken Coast facilities plus its big new Aphria Diamond facility will increase the company's capacity to 255,000 kilograms by early next year.
3. Aurora Cannabis
Coming in third among the big five Canadian marijuana stocks is Aurora Cannabis. The company's market cap is currently close to $10.2 billion. That's more than triple Aurora's market cap at the outset of 2018. This big jump stemmed largely from multiple acquisitions made by Aurora over the last year, notably including the buyout of MedReleaf.
Aurora's current annual production capacity is 45,000 kilograms. But by the end of the year, the company anticipates that its capacity will have jumped to more than 150,000 kilograms. And once several other major expansion projects are completed in the second half of 2019, Aurora's production capacity should soar to more than 500,000 kilograms per year.
2. Canopy Growth
For most of the last couple of years, Canopy Growth sat at the top of the largest Canadian marijuana stocks by market cap. Now, though, Canopy's market cap of around $10.9 billion puts it in second place. It's not that Canopy's market cap hasn't increased. Actually, it's up nearly 150% so far this year. But another stock leaped past Canopy.
Canopy Growth doesn't talk in terms of production capacity. The company does, though, discuss its 4.3 million square feet of growing space licensed for production in Canada. And Canopy claims 5.6 million square feet of growing space in total. That's higher than any other marijuana grower's growing platform -- including Aurora's total projected growing space of 4.5 million square feet.
1. Tilray
Tilray holds the No. 1 spot among Canadian marijuana stocks with a market cap of nearly $15 billion. The stock began trading on the Nasdaq exchange in July and has skyrocketed pretty much ever since. Tilray's market cap topped Canopy's by September and has remained the largest in the industry over the last several weeks except for a brief period.
But Tilray doesn't claim a top ranking in production capacity. The company expects to have 912,000 square feet of growing space by the end of 2018 -- 682,000 square feet of which is in Canada, with the rest in its Portugal facility.
Changing positions?
The companies in the top 5 could easily change positions over the next few months. Which is the most likely to lose ground? Probably Tilray.
Tilray's rapid rise has been fueled in large part by a very low stock float and a high level of short-selling, which combined to result in a short squeeze that continues to play itself out. However, Tilray's IPO lockup period expires on Jan. 15, 2019. There could be an increase in shares sold at that time, creating pressure that pulls the stock down.
It seems likely that Canopy Growth will eventually reclaim its spot at the top. However, Aurora Cannabis could make a run. Its stock will soon list on the New York Stock Exchange, making Aurora more visible to U.S. investors. The company could also be a top candidate to partner with a major beverage maker outside of the cannabis industry.
Ultimately, though, what matters most for investors isn't market cap rankings, but growth instead. All five of these Canadian marijuana companies should enjoy strong revenue growth. Of the group, Aphria might be in position for the most growth in its share price thanks to its relatively attractive valuation among marijuana stocks.


text:
Calls grow for a special prosecutor in the Russia investigation. How are they appointed?
Following President Donald Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, calls for the government to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Trump campaign's Russian ties continue to intensify.
As explained by the Congressional Research Service, special prosecutors are personnel from outside the Department of Justice who are appointed "to conduct investigations and possible prosecutions of certain sensitive matters, or matters which may raise a conflict of interest for Justice Department personnel."
If the DOJ does appoint an independent prosecutor, it will be invoking a strategy that dates back to the administration of Ulysses S. Grant's in 1875. But things have changed a lot for special investigations over the years — and as the laws stand now, a special prosecutor might not be as independent as Trump critics hope.
Who appoints a special prosecutor?
Currently, a special prosecutor is "appointed by, are answerable to and may have their prosecutorial or investigative decisions countermanded by the Attorney General," according to the CSR.
What this means is that any special counsel is under the jurisdiction of current Attorney General Jeff Sessions — or, since Sessions agreed to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein. This would be similar to a George W. Bush-era investigation into the Valerie Plame affair, in which Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself and let then-deputy Comey take the lead.
The special counsel's tie to the attorney general, however, hasn't always been the case. In response to the Watergate scandal, Congress passed a provision in the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 stipulating that although the attorney general could still recommend the appointment of a special prosecutor, a three-person panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia would be responsible for appointing the prosecutor, according to the CRS.
The provision continued to evolve over the years, PBS reported, including a switch from "special prosecutor" to the "less prejudicial" term "independent counsel." The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law in 1988, but Congress failed to renew the legislation in 1999, allowing it to expire and returning power over special investigations to the attorney general. Though Republicans had long decried the three-person panel system, Democrats joined them in opposing the bill after it was repeatedly used to investigate President Bill Clinton, according to the Washington Post.
Past special counsel investigations
Ten special prosecutors were appointed during six presidential terms between Grant's first use and the Watergate scandal, including investigations into the 1920s Teapot Dome scandal and tax scandals in the 1950s, according to a report published in Georgetown Law Journal.
But it wasn't until Watergate and the Nixon administration that special prosecutors became a major source of attention. Though Elliot Richardson, Nixon's attorney general, hired special prosecutor Archibald Cox, Nixon later ordered Richardson to fire Cox during the Saturday Night Massacre of 1973. But the massive public outcry caused Nixon to appoint Leon Jaworski as Cox's successor — and the scandal sparked the passage of the Ethics in Government Act.
Over 20 special investigations took place during law's 21-year tenure. Among the most notable probes concerned the Iran-Contra scandal and the multiple inquiries into President Bill Clinton's administration, including the Whitewater investigation that led to his impeachment proceedings.
The shortcomings of special prosecutors
When the Ethics in Government law lapsed in 1999, even former supporters of the law — like Whitewater investigator Kenneth Starr and Attorney General Janet Reno, who renewed the law in 1994 — decried it as an "unmitigated disaster," according to the Dictionary of American History. The law's critics cited the investigations' cost, length, "lack of accountability and unchecked prosecutorial power" as reasons for its unpopularity.
"It was a nightmare," Clinton told Fox News about reauthorizing the law in 2010, as quoted by Politico. "The only good thing to come out of it was it killed this whole system. I don't think there'll ever be another one like this again."
But the current system of relying on the attorney general may also be deeply flawed. The CRS noted that since 1999, special prosecutors have had less independence from the attorney general and the DOJ than before the Ethics in Government law expired — or even before the law was first enacted.
Under the current regulations, the CRS explained, the attorney general "establishes and defines the prosecutorial jurisdiction" of the special prosecutor, must be notified about any "significant actions" the special prosecutor takes — and has the power to revoke them — and can remove a special prosecutor for "misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest or for other good cause." Additionally, if the special prosecutor wants to appeal any cases, it has to be approved by the U.S. solicitor general — an appointee of the president.
Unless Congress were to reauthorize the Ethics in Government law, this means any special counsel appointed to investigate Trump's Russian ties will be at the mercy of the very administration — and attorney general — they're trying to investigate.
Even if the investigation does go forward, there's a chance the findings may not be as revelatory as Trump's critics hope. In March, the Washington Post's Derek Hawkins wrote notes the special counsel's job is to find evidence, rather than publicly expose wrongdoing. In other words, should a special prosecutor fail to find sufficient evidence to bring criminal changes, any information he or she uncovered would remain classified.
"Prosecutors are not journalists, and their job is not to inform the public of the results of their investigations," former assistant special counsel Peter Zeidenberg wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post. "Rather, their mission is to gather all of the relevant facts and determine whether a crime was committed and, if so, whether it can be proved in court beyond a reasonable doubt. Their work, when done properly, is done in secret."
If no criminal wrongdoing is found, the public would effectively "remain entirely in the dark" about the results of the prosecutor's investigation. "All they would know is that, after many months — or, more likely, years — of investigation, the special prosecutor had packed up his or her bags and gone home.
No special reports. No Comey-style news conferences. Just radio silence."


text: As do many materials suppliers, manufacturers of glass products stand to benefit from two-dimensional bar codes inscribed on their products. These marks provide a means to determine a product's revision level, to deter counterfeiting or to track its location, date and method of manufacture. Unlike many materials, however, glass presents significant challenges to most marking methods, including laser-based approaches.Ablating glass requires sources emitting at either ultraviolet or long-infrared wavelengths where the material readily absorbs. The challenge stems from the brittle nature of glass and its poor heat conduction. This makes it difficult to limit ablation effects to the mark and to prevent microcracks in the surrounding glass. Combined with the ejected material, these cracks not only blur the boundaries of the mark, but also limit the minimum mark size.Aside from wavelength, the most important laser parameters for this application are pulse energy and spot size. Pulse duration is also important, because shorter laser pulses will confine the heat flow.Although glass absorbs excimer wavelengths, the masks on which these sources rely for marking generally preclude production of 2-D bar codes in real time. The most suitable candidates remaining include CO2 lasers emitting at 10.6 μm and quadrupled Nd:YAG lasers emitting at 266 nm. Selection generally comes down to the size of the mark desired. CO2 lasers cannot easily deliver spot sizes of less than 100 μm, which translates into comparatively larger bar codes. This hasn't dampened interest from automotive or window glass suppliers, whose products can afford larger marks.Applications that require smaller-scale marks, such as flat panel displays, favor quadrupled Nd:YAG lasers, which easily deliver 5-μm spot sizes. At this scale, ablation poses a greater risk of microcracks that, in turn, can greatly affect legibility. Glass markers instead have used lasers to heat a small volume of glass to induce a highly localized change in diffraction index. Illuminated under the proper conditions, this altered area has sufficient contrast to be detected by a microscope with a CCD camera.Quadrupled Nd:YAG lasers easily deliver 5-μm spot sizes for marking extremely small bar codes in glass.This marking approach, however, requires very tight control over the amount of energy deposited by each laser pulse. Most marking lasers are Q-switched to produce high peak power. The energy in a Q-switched pulse is a function of the pulse repetition rate, which varies considerably during marking and which imposes unacceptably large variations in mark quality.Recently, laser makers have begun to offer quadrupled Nd:YAGs that control cavity pump time — how long the Q-switch remains closed — independent of pulse repetition rate, resulting in constant pulse energy. The flexible control of these solid-state lasers allows them to configure pulse energy specific to a variety of glasses and bar-code cell sizes.Q-switched CO2 pulses also minimize microcracking. But existing lasers lack the flexibility to modify pulse energy, so they tend to rely on ablation to imprint a bar code. This is less of a problem for CO2 laser marking systems because the larger marks they inscribe permit greater tolerance for damage.Contact: Lenny Migliore, senior laser process development engineer, Coherent Inc., Santa Clara, Calif.; +1 (408) 764-4668; fax: +1 (408) 764-4800; e-mail: email@example.com.


text:
"How are you feeling?" It seems like a simple question, but it has significant implications for hospitals and their patients. Understanding those ramifications could be the key to improving patients' perceptions of their hospital stay -- and their overall health. Gallup World Poll research has found that positive emotions are effective predictors of self-reported health status and are closely associated with health.
A patient who feels that he's getting better all the time has reason to hope and to invest in the future.
Gallup has also observed this relationship in analyzing the results of HCAHPS surveys. HCAHPS, which stands for Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, is a federally mandated 27-item survey that patients take up to six weeks following a hospital stay. Patients' ratings are aggregated by hospital and adjusted to control for factors including survey mode and patient characteristics (patient mix). The resulting scores are reported publicly so the public can compare hospitals. These scores also affect a hospital's Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement.
"HCAHPS scores are extremely important," says Stacie McGaughey Meder, a registered nurse in Lincoln, Nebraska. "Everything we do [as healthcare providers] is represented by the HCAHPS scores."
But by the time patients fill out the survey, they're no longer under the direct attention of healthcare providers. When patients are in the hospital, staff members can check on them as often as needed. "We can't do that when people go home," McGaughey Meder says. "Some people are very active and continue to improve, but some aren't -- and they get worse."
Recently, Gallup researchers examined the relationship between patient responses on two key HCAHPS items: one that asks patients to rate their overall health from "poor" to "excellent" and another that asks them to rate the hospital during their stay from "worst hospital possible" to "best hospital possible." Eight in 10 patients (82%) who considered their health to be excellent rated their hospital a 9 or 10 on the item assessing the overall quality of the hospital. In contrast, 6 in 10 patients who rated their health as fair (64%) or poor (59%) rated the hospital a 9 or 10 on this item.
Given that about one-quarter of hospital patients view themselves in fair or poor health, this group represents a significant opportunity for a hospital to increase its overall score. And there's a lot that hospitals can do to change how patients look at their health if hospitals understand -- and can broaden -- the patients' point of view.
The benefits of positive emotions
"Even thirty years ago, psychologists were finding that stress exacerbates illness, but doctors were hesitant to buy into that," says Shane Lopez, Ph.D., professor of business at the University of Kansas and author of Making Hope Happen. "Now we know how physically debilitating stress and depression are. Only recently have we learned how important joy, contentment, and happiness are. Positive emotions have a positive physical effect. Yet physicians are very slow to accept that positive emotions affect health in a big way."
The beneficial results of positive emotions have been studied in depth -- one of the most well-known ideas is the "broaden-and-build" theory developed by Barbara L. Fredrickson, a professor at the University of North Carolina and principal investigator at the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab. But these studies have focused largely on the relationships between positive emotions and psychological health. Research into the medical aspect of positive emotions is more recent, but it's already turning up information that hospitals should know.
When Dr. Lopez and two other leading researchers examined the link between emotion and health in more than 140 countries using Gallup World Poll data, they found that positive or negative emotions accounted for 46% of the variance in self-reported health. They also found that the links between self-reported emotions and health were "stronger than the relative impact of hunger, homelessness, and threats to safety on health."
Those links may provide the insight hospitals need to improve their overall HCAHPS ratings. For instance, many hospitals have a program to contact patients after they've been discharged. "We have an assistant nurse manager who calls to check on patients three days after they've gone home and then three weeks after that," McGaughey Meder says. The nurse manager asks about prescriptions, if the patient still understands everything the nurses and doctors said, and if they have the family help they need. "I think the impact of this is huge. Patients feel better when they know someone is checking up [and] not leaving them in the abyss of being home alone," says McGaughey Meder.
Programs like the one at McGaughey Meder's hospital are a good approach to helping patients take ownership of their health. But there's an added benefit to helping patients connect their behavior now with their future health. "There's a psychological upward spiral," says Lopez. "When you feel as though you're continuing to improve, you feel better emotionally, which then leads you to feel better physically -- and when you're feeling better physically, you feel better emotionally."
A patient who feels that he's getting better all the time -- and that if he follows his doctors' directions, he'll improve even more -- has reason to hope and to invest in the future. So he's more likely to do the things that improve his future -- such as take his pills, go to checkups, or exercise -- which helps improve his health. The opposite is also true: People who feel their health is poor aren't as likely to do the things that will help improve it. "Hope for the future is what pulls people forward," says Dr. Lopez. "Positive emotions are great predictors of physical health, and they go hand in hand with feeling good physically."
That's an important discovery for healthcare organizations because people tend to credit their hospital for their improving health -- or to blame the hospital for not fixing it. Says Dr. Lopez, "It all kind of rolls up into a positive narrative: 'If it weren't for those guys, I wouldn't be feeling this way right now.'"


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Singapore's GDP contracted 7 per cent on a year-on-year basis in the third quarter of 2020, an improvement from the 13.3 per cent contraction in the second quarter.
The improved performance of the Singapore economy came on the back of the phased re-opening of the economy following the Circuit Breaker implemented between April 7 and June 1.
In a press statement on Wednesday, October 14, Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said the manufacturing sector grew by two per cent on a year-on-year basis in the third quarter, a reversal from the 0.8 per cent contraction in the previous quarter.
The construction sector shrank by 44.7 per cent on a year-on-year basis in the third quarter, extending the 59.9 per cent decline in the previous quarter. "Construction output in the third quarter remained weak on account of the slow resumption of construction activities due to the need for construction firms to implement safe management measures for a safe restart," MTI added.
The services producing industries contracted by eight per cent on a year-on-year basis in the third quarter, an improvement from the 13.6 per cent decline in the previous quarter. Aviation- and tourism-related sectors such as air transport and accommodation continued to see significant contractions, as global travel restrictions and sluggish travel demand brought air travel and visitor arrivals to a near complete standstill.
In addition, even though consumer-facing sectors such as retail and food services saw an improvement in performance as the Singapore economy exited the Circuit Breaker, they remained in contraction.
However, the finance & insurance and information & communications sectors recorded steady growth during the quarter. On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally-adjusted basis, the services producing industries expanded by 6.8 per cent, a reversal from the 11.2 per cent decline seen in the second quarter.


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Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Retro Fun
12 comments:
Oh I love all these things especially the juice pitcher!ReplyDelete
I know what you mean...I cannot show some of the things I've been working on because they are Christmas gifts for my daughter...and she reads my blog!!
How fun!!! I have necer seen a juice pitcher like that...love it.ReplyDelete
I don't like orange juice....but I would seriously consider drinking it out of that cute pitcher!! But however, I would take a splash of cream out of that darling creamer. :)ReplyDelete
Love it all, love retro too! :)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousNovember 17, 2010 at 5:20 PM
Hey! Did ya get something for me??? I promise to be surprised at Christmas.ReplyDelete
oh my I LOVE that creamer...it's perfectly pink:)ReplyDelete
Like the retro stuff! V. cool!ReplyDelete
What treasures...I am in love with the little pink creamer...sigh...hugs. oxoxReplyDelete
Oh I love your finds. Especially that juice pitcher.ReplyDelete
Love the little creamer, too. I have a collection of pyrex and love the pinks and aquas in it.
You found great treasures. Love the little creamer and the tissue holder is really special. It's so cute that you already have juice in your pitcher. Great shopping. Thanks for sharing.ReplyDelete
Love the pitcher.ReplyDelete
I love the pink creamer and the tissue holder. Very fun!ReplyDelete


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"The horrific stories we are hearing from Philadelphia of Dr. Gosnell's 'House of Horrors' in which living children were butchered when they survived an attempted abortion illustrate why this legislation is so crucial," said AUL's Dr. Yoest
WASHINGTON, D.C. (04-17-13) –Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest saluted the Florida House of Representatives as it unanimously voted to support the Infants Born Alive Protection act. This was the first of three strategic bills on deck this week, including a bill to prohibit sex-selection abortions and a bill to protect the rights of parents of unborn children killed through criminal violence. Dr. Yoest testified in favor of the Infants Born Alive Protection Act earlier this month and observed that this measure provided Floridians with "real protections for children, alive and struggling for life, who deserve a chance."
"The horrific stories we are hearing from Philadelphia of Dr. Gosnell's 'House of Horrors' in which living children were butchered when they survived an attempted abortion illustrate why this legislation is so crucial," said Dr. Yoest. "I commend the Florida House for passing this important pro-life legislation. This common sense legislation should be common ground for all individuals whether pro-life or pro-abortion."
The Infants Born Alive Act would require that if an infant is born alive after an abortion attempt, that child must be immediately transported to the nearest hospital and given medical treatment. Under this bill an infant born alive would be entitled to the same rights and privileges as any other infant born after a natural birth.
Planned Parenthood initially opposed this bill and notoriously endorsed the possibility of infanticide, in testifying that the fate of a born alive infant should be left up to the woman, her family and the health care provider. Since media outcry, Planned Parenthood has removed their opposition.
"The recent statements by Planned Parenthood's Florida lobbyist illustrate just how fragile even the most humane legal protections for young children really are in America," said Dr. Yoest. "This bill in Florida is an important part of the protections needed for infants born in abortion clinics. We challenge all Americans to join us in a national 'Let Them Live" campaign, to find common ground in the humanity of newborn children in all 50 states."
Dr. Yoest urged the Florida Senate to quickly take up the bill to protect vulnerable children from big abortion and send them to the Governor for his signature.
For more information on AUL's "Let Them Live" campaign, click here.


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Broadcast quality MP3 (39 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)
Ralph Nader
A conversation between two great Progressive activists and essayists: Ralph Nader and Chris Hedges. (Technically, Nader is interviewing Hedges.) They discuss
- the corruption of the System, including the Democratic Party
- the oppression by the 1% of everyone else
- the sad plight of college students and other young people in the ravaged American economy
- the necessity of nonviolent popular rebellion
Introduction by KD.
Chris Hedges
Excerpted from an installment of the KPFK-FM program, Ralph Nader Radio Hour, July 11, 2015. Audio courtesy of ralphnaderradiohour.com.
Chris Hedges' new book is Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt (Nation Books, 2015).


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JAKARTA – Indonesia, which is weighing an early ban on exports of bauxite and copper concentrates, is betting on Chinese companies to add to the billions of dollars of investment in building smelters and processing plants.
Making a deal with China is "simple", as the country "is willing to meet any request from us," said Coordinating Minister of Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, who also oversees mining. "The most important thing is how Indonesia can protect its national interest, not the origin of investment," he said.
Indonesia expects the export ban to lure about $20-billlion in fresh investment into nickel and related projects by 2024. Several overseas firms are planning battery-grade nickel facilities in Indonesia, including China's Tsingshan Holding Group Co. and PT Vale Indonesia, a unit of the Brazilian mining giant. Investments have totaled about $9-billion so far, Pandjaitan said.
Indonesia last month jolted the metals market by expediting a ban on nickel ore exports by two years to force miners to build smelters to locally process the ore used in stainless steel and lithium-ion battery. It's now studying bringing forward export curbs on bauxite, asphalt and copper concentrates in line with President Joko Widodo's efforts to transform the country into a processor of major minerals.
"We just realized that asphalt can be used as propellant for a rocket. Hence, why should we export the raw materials? Why don't we have the downstream industry here?" Pandjaitan told a forum in Jakarta on Thursday. "The question is where does the technology come from? Well, again, the one that can make it easy is China."
Chinese investment in Indonesia soared significantly in Widodo's first term, resulting in occasional anti-Chinese sentiments in Southeast Asia's largest economy. But Pandjaitan doesn't mind the source of the investment as long as companies "bring the environmentally-friendly, first-class technology, and help educate the locals."
"Some people say, Luhut is a Chinese agent. Others say that I am the honorary ambassador of China. It's just a prattle," he said.


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Machine tools and powered equipment help us to do more and heavier work than we could ever do on our own. Your employees can use this refresher course to better understand machinery hazards that they may face. While accidents occur, most of these incidents could have been prevented by the proper use of machine guards and other safety devices. Through a series of microlearning videos, employees will learn dangerous mechanical motions, types of machine guards, guarding points of operation, safety devices, safe work practices, and more.
Available in English and Spanish


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Editors Note: This is a guest post.
How Do You Know You Have High-Quality CBD Oil?
As CBD oil gets more popular, you may wonder how to choose from the nearly endless number of CBD oils on the market. We're here to help you out! It's vital to use the best-quality CBD oil from a reliable source for optimal results. Below are seven signs that you've chosen a premium CBD oil.
Oil Is Extracted With Supercritical CO2
Premium oils use the safest solvents to extract CBD, such as CO2. This process ensures a safe, pure product that isn't tainted by additives or residues. Lesser solvents such as propane or butane can damage the product with hazardous contaminants.
Oil Is Made With Naturally Grown Hemp
Hemp is called a hyperaccumulator plant. In English, this means hemp can absorb darned near everything from the soil in which it grows. What hemp absorbs can be beneficial, including several vitamins and minerals. Or, it can be harmful, such as petroleum and lead.
The safest oils are sourced from regions where regulators require farmers to have certifications and have their growing fields tested for harmful contaminants. The oil also needs to be tested by an accredited lab in the ISO-IEC 17025:2017 standard. This accreditation means the lab ensures the oil doesn't have heavy metals, pesticides, fungus, bacteria, and other nasty stuff that can damage human health.
It's Not Too Inexpensive
CBD oil is one product where you get precisely what you pay for. Premium CBD oil costs a lot to make. If the price is low, it's probably made with mediocre extraction methods and contaminants. It also may not contain significant amounts of CBD.
Of course, we're not telling you to buy the most expensive CBD oil on the planet. Look for fair prices and excellent customer reviews.
The Label States Percentage of CBD
Excellent CBD oil made by a legitimate company tells you the CBD percentage is in the product. You should hunt for the concentration or total milligrams per bottle. A higher number means a potent CBD oil. For maximum efficacy, top CBD oils should have 250-1,000 mg for each 10 ml bottle. Anything less than that and you may as well flush your money down the toilet.
Has No More than 0.2% THC
CBD oil may have minute quantities of THC – almost always 0.2% or less – but it won't get you high. But insufficient processing can increase THC levels that CAN make you high. This is evidence of a bad product. Plus, it could make the oil illegal in your state. Review product labels with care for precise THC levels before you pull out your debit card.
No Extreme Medical Claims
CBD has impressive beneficial health properties. But it doesn't have FDA approval as a medicine. This means it's treated like a vitamin or supplement. No company can boast that it treats or cures a medical problem. For example, if you see a CBD oil that claims it can fight cancer, you need to run in the other direction.
Produced From Whole Plant Extracts
The best CBD oils are extracted from whole cannabis plants. They're called full-spectrum CBD oils. They are usually considered the best quality and are superior to products derived from isolates.
While CBD isolates sound great, they're often products from low-quality materials. It also lacks vital flavonoids, terpenes, and cannabinoids that affect the product's efficacy for many health problems. You want full-spectrum oil for the best results.
We hope we've made you understand the most vital things to look for in high-quality CBD oil. Now you know what separates the best products from the also-rans.


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The Arizona Cardinals have their home and regular season finale on Sunday as they play host to the Seattle Seahawks. As both are 7-8, they are battling for second place in the division and for a .500 record, something that seemed impossible earlier in the season.
The two teams met up earlier in the season in Seattle, with the Seahawks prevailing 13-10 in a low-scoring affair. In that game, Arizona played without Beanie Wells and struggled mightily at running the ball, failing on several attempts to get first downs on third and one or two yards.
With the game on Sunday, it is time to make your predictions. Mine comes after the jump.
As has been the case, the Cardinals are going to fall behind early, but it won't be as bad as in previous weeks. The defense will keep Marshawn Lynch in check, much like they did in Seattle. It will be 10-6 Seattle at the half.
Beanie Wells' playing will be felt, as he will run the ball effectively. He will finish with 83 yards on 17 carries.
The second half will see a defensive effort, but John Skelton makes a couple of big throws, taking the lead halfway through the final quarter and the defense holding on.
The final score? 20-16 Arizona.


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Oakland-based five-piece bluesy soul machine The California Honeydrops performed at The Basement in Nashville recently; on tour in support of their latest release, A River's Invitation, The Honeydrops have been tearing up the highways, with an itinerary packed full of summer festival performances, a stop at the legendary Burning Man festival, and not one, but two hometown album release shows.
The album was produced by the band, recorded in frontman and founding member Lech Wierzynski's living room, and drew on musical influences as diverse as Bay Area R&B, funk, Southern soul, Delta blues, New Orleans second-line, gospel and psychedelic groove.
The Basement, always a cozy and intimate setting, was packed out with Honeydrops fans that evening. The band took the stage, each member uniquely behatted and eager to get the festivities started. Frontman Wierzynski, a brightly perpetual smile on his face, said "Let's play the blues. Why not?" The band fell into an easy groove, and the chemistry was palpable between the members. Wierzynski's smooth and silky voice brought the crowd out of their seats and closer to each other and the stage, essentially erasing the imaginary line between The Honeydrops and the audience; Wierzynski beckoned them even closer, suggested they pass the chairs up front and out of the way, and the audience obliged.
As multi-instrumentalist Wierzynski wowed on the trumpet and the guitar, people shimmied and swayed like it was second nature as the sound of New Orleans jazz filled the crowded space. The band consistently made the audience a part of the performance with sing-alongs and call and answer participation, which of course, sounded so very good. We're all musicians here in Nashville, y'all.
If you missed seeing them, don't fret! The Honeydrops have some dates left, so go see this phenomenal group if you can.
[These photographs were taken by the incomparable Wesley Duffee-Braun. You can see more of his genius on display a www.wesleyduffeebraun.com.]


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Ryan Seacrest might be adding hosting duties of another kind to his schedule in 2009. A source from within CNN says that Seacrest, who has filled in for his friend Larry King in the past, is involved in "serious negotiations" to take over "Larry King Live" around year's end. King told The New York Times in April 2007 that Seacrest would be his first choice to take over the show when the time came.
"He's the classic generalist," King told the Times. "The only thing I don't know, and I've gotten to know him pretty well, is how versed he is in politics, world affairs. Does he read the paper? Is he interested in Iraq? Because if he is, he's going to be very good."
Yup, because that's the guy who should be discussing politics and the Iraq war on national TV.


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Chinese Estates Holdings Limited (the "Company" and together with its subsidiaries, the "Group") was incorporated in Bermuda with securities listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Group is principally engaged in property investment and development, property management, brokerage, securities investment, money lending, and cosmetics distribution and trading.
Listed below are the major developments of the Group:
|The forerunner of our Group was a company called Evergo Holdings Company Limited (formerly Evergo Industrial Enterprise Limited) ("Evergo") which was established by Mr. Joseph Lau, Luen-hung. Evergo was engaged in the manufacture and sale of electronic products, ceiling fans, kerosene heaters, bug killers and lighting fixtures.
|Evergo became listed on 16th August, 1983.
|Evergo diversified its business to investment holding and property management services and reduced its operation in manufacturing and sale of electronic products.
|In April, Evergo acquired 43.5% of the issued shares of Chinese Estates, Limited ("CEL"), a HK-listed company which was engaged in real estate investment and development, securities investment and financial services. In December, CEL in turn held 40.0% of HK-listed China Entertainment and Land Investment Company, Limited ("China Entertainment"), the owner of the Entertainment Building in Central. In April 1987, CEL owned 52.1% interest in China Entertainment.
|China Entertainment acquired two HK-listed companies, Paul Y. Construction Company, Limited ("Paul Y. Construction") and China Entertainment Strategic Investments Limited ("CESIL") which were engaged in building construction and securities investment respectively.
|The Company began to diversify its property interests to the PRC through the participation in the development of the Oriental Arts Building Complex in Beijing.
|The five listed companies within the Group shifted their domicile oversea after a series of group reorganisation and with schemes of arrangements and the listings were replaced by their new holding companies. As a result, CEL, Evergo and China Entertainment became wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Company, Evergo International Holdings Company Limited ("Evergo International") and China Entertainment and Land Investments Holdings Limited ("China Entertainment Holdings") respectively. Paul Y. Construction and CESIL became wholly-owned subsidiaries under the ownership of Paul Y. Holdings Company Limited ("Paul Y. Holdings") and Superford Financial Holdings Limited ("Superford") respectively.
|Paul Y. Holdings and Superford merged and became wholly-owned subsidiaries of Paul Y. International Group Limited ("Paul Y. International") which replaced the listings of the two former companies.
|The construction business under Paul Y. Construction was sold.
|Paul Y. International was privatised by China Entertainment Holdings in February and concentrated its activities on property investment and development.
China Entertainment Holdings was privatised by the Company in September to consolidate the assets of both companies.
The Group expanded its property interests in the PRC.
|The Company rationalised the group structure by a merger with its then controlling shareholder, Evergo International, turning Evergo International into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company. After a series of restructuring, the various listed vehicles within the Group were consolidated and privatised into only one listed vehicle, namely, Chinese Estates Holdings Limited.
|The Company reclassified its interest in the PRC by demerging Evergo China Holdings Limited ("Evergo China") from the Group by a successful separate listing of Evergo China in November. Immediately after the listing, Evergo China remained as a subsidiary of the Group and became the Group's PRC properties vehicle for property development and investment in the PRC. Evergo China was principally engaged in property development and investment, investment holding and financing in major or emerging cities in the PRC.
|The Group, through a 50:50 joint venture vehicle, acquired around 64.29% interest in a HK-listed company, The Kwong Sang Hong International Limited ("Kwong Sang Hong").
|The interest held by the 50:50 joint venture vehicle in Kwong Sang Hong was reduced to 53.52% in July after three share placements.
The Group acquired 66.89% interest in a HK-listed property company, Chi Cheung Investment Company, Limited ("Chi Cheung") in November.
|The interest held by the Group in Chi Cheung increased to 72.68% in May after the creditors of Chi Cheung exercised their put options pursuant to the scheme of arrangement of Chi Cheung and a share placement.
Evergo China was privatised by the Company in November.
|The Group further acquired 7.6% direct interest in Kwong Sang Hong in January and February 2002.
|The interest held by the Group in Chi Cheung decreased to 71.94% in November after an asset transaction with Chi Cheung and a special dividend by way of distribution in specie by the Company.
The Group acquired 57.56% interest in a HK-listed company, G-Prop (Holdings) Limited ("G-Prop") in November. The acquisition and restructuring were completed in January 2004.
|The Group further acquired 2.38% direct interest in Chi Cheung in January 2004. The total interest in Chi Cheung increased to 74.32%.
|Upon the completion of privatisation of Kwong Sang Hong in February, the interest of the Group in Kwong Sang Hong increased from 34.36% to 50%.
The interest held by the Group in Chi Cheung was reduced to 61.93% in February after share placement of Chi Cheung.
The interest held by the Group in G-Prop was reduced to 50.10% in February after share placement of G-Prop.
Listing and permission to deal in certain Zero Coupon Convertible Bonds due 2010 became effective on 21st April, 2005.
|The Company has adopted new corporate governance measures as detailed in the 2005 annual report of the Company to further safeguard and protect the interests of the Company and its shareholders.
Mr. Lau, Ming-wai was appointed as an executive director of the Company on 15th December, 2006.
|The interest held by the Group in G-Prop was reduced to 34.99% in June after share placement of G-Prop.
Withdrawal of listing of the Zero Coupon Covertible Bonds 2010 with effect from 30th August, 2007.
The interest held by the Group in G-Prop was diluted to 13.69% in October after allotment and issue of new shares of G-Prop.
|After acquisition of shares of G-Prop in February, and mandatory unconditional cash offers by the Group for all the issued shares and convertible bonds of G-Prop which closed in May, the Group held 50.20% of shares of G-Prop and convertible bonds issued by G-Prop in the principle amount of HK$108 million. In October, G-Prop has redeemed its convertible bonds held by the Group.
Mr. Lau, Ming-wai was re-designated as a non-executive director of the Company on 31st October, 2008.
|Additional corporate governance measures adopted in 2006 were revoked with effect from 1st January, 2009.
A share award scheme was adopted by the Company on 14th January, 2009.
|Mr. Lau, Ming-wai was appointed as the vice chairman of the Company on 1st December, 2010.
Ms. Chan, Sze-wan was appointed as an executive director of the Company on 12th June, 2012.
The Group disposed of its entire shareholding in G-Prop to an independent third party in early August 2012.
|The Group disposed of its entire shareholding in Chi Cheung to an independent third party in early February 2013.
Mr. Joseph Lau, Luen-hung resigned from his offices of executive director, chairman and chief executive officer of the Company on 14th March, 2014.
Mr. Lau, Ming-wai was appointed as the chairman and acting chief executive officer of the Company and re-designated from non-executive director to executive director on 14th March, 2014.
Mr. Lau, Ming-wai was re-designated as the chief executive officer of the Company on 15th April, 2014.
Mr. Lau, Ming-wai resigned as the chief executive officer of the Company and re-designated as a non-executive director of the Company on 1st November, 2015.
Ms. Chan, Sze-wan was appointed as the chief executive officer of the Company on 1st November, 2015.
|Ms. Chan, Hoi-wan was appointed as an executive director of the Company on 13th February, 2017.
Ms. Chan, Sze-wan resigned from her offices of executive director and the chief executive officer of the Company on 17th February, 2021.
Ms. Chan, Hoi-wan was appointed as the chief executive officer of the Company on 17th February, 2021.


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Filters: Author is Jacob, A. [Clear All Filters]
Using object technologies to develop a distributed marine data server. In proceedings from Norsk Informatikkonferanse NIK'98, Høgskolen i Agder 55-66 (1998).
Marine Information System: A tool for monitoring and prediction. In proceedings from International Symposium on Information Technology in Oceanography (ITO-98), Goa, India (1998).
Marine Information System - a tool for integrate handling of data from the marine environment. Proceedings for the 27th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of the Environment Information for Sustainabilty, Tromsø, Norway, organized by International Symposia on Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE) and the Norwegian Space Centre (1998).
Explotation of ERS -1/2 Tandem Mission for LES program. Vol.1 & 2. ERIM, Coastwatch. NERSC Special Report no. 49 (1997).
Development of an Ice Information System (IIS) to be implemented at the NERSC. Computers and Geosciences 21, 937-946 (1995).
Developing a Marine Information System by Integrating Existing Ocean Models Using Object-Oriented Technology. Marine Geodesy 26, 87-106 (2003).
Data Integration in an Ice Information System (IIS). Master Thesis No. 2 (1996).
Characterisation of Inland and Coastal Waters with space sensors. NERSC Technical Report No. 164 (1999).
A 4D Marine Data Model: Design and Application in Ice Monitoring. Marine Geodesy 20, 121-136 (1997).