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Hottest Luxury Cars From the 2014 Geneva Motor Show
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The Geneva Motor Show is known for its luxury- and exotic-car debuts. No fewer than 20 premium models were shown at Geneva from compact hatchbacks to supercars with more than 1000 horsepower as well as new variants and limited edition models. Now to the highlights:
Aston Martin DB9 Carbon Black, DB9 Carbon White
The Aston Martin DB9 Carbon Black and DB9 Carbon White editions offer buyers two unique looks. Carbon fiber side strakes and black side window trim lend to the black-painted DB9 Carbon Black model's dark-theme and contrasts with the DB9 Carbon White model's Stratus White paint. Inside, both cars feature carbon fiber trim, black switches, and bespoke sill plates with Carbon Black or Carbon White logos, while the interior stitching color is matched to the specified brake caliper color. The special order models are not available in the U.S.
Audi S1 Quattro
Sporting a 231-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter I-4, the pint-size Audi S1 Quattro is based on the Euro-market A1 hatchback. Although transmission choices haven't been disclosed, we expect the S1 Quattro to route power to all four wheels via a standard six-speed manual or available six-speed dual clutch transmission. Audi estimates the two-door S1 Quattro hatchback will accelerate to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds and 5.9 seconds for the four-door S1 Quattro Sportback. While the S1 Quattro likely won't make it to the U.S., European pricing is set at about $41,100-$42,300.
Audi S3 Cabriolet
After replacing the previous Audi A3 hatchback with the new A3 sedan, Audi introduced the open-top version at Geneva. The sporty S3 Cabriolet is powered by a 296-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter I-4 mated to a six-speed dual-clutch transmission and all-wheel drive. Despite adding 300 pounds during the transformation from sedan to convertible, Audi claims the S3 Cabriolet can accelerate to 60 mph in 5.4 seconds. The top lowers in 18 seconds at speeds below 31 mph. Pricing hasn't been set, but we estimate the S3 Cabriolet will start just above $40,000.
Audi TT
Now in its third-generation, the Audi TT is being billed as more of a sports car ever before. The base TT is powered by a 230-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter I-4 with a six-speed manual and front-drive standard. A six-speed dual-clutch and Quattro all-wheel drive is optional. The same engine in the TTS gets bumped to 310 hp and Quattro is standard. Audi estimates a TT with dual-clutch and Quattro will reach 62 mph in 5.3 seconds, while the TTS will get there in 4.7 seconds. The new TT as well as the TT Quattro Sport concept are shown below.
With a 500-hp twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 under the hood, the Bentley Flying Spur V8 sedan is a more affordable and fuel efficient alternative to the 616-hp twin-turbo 6.0-liter W-12 model. Although fuel economy improves (14/24 mpg city/highway vs. 12/20 mpg), top speed drops from 200 mph to 183 mph. Like the W-12 model, the V-8 is mated to an eight-speed automatic that sends power to all four wheels. The Flying Spur V8 is estimated to reach 60 mph in 4.9 seconds, though Bentley's estimates ten to be conservative.
Bentley Continental GT Speed
For those who won't compromise on power or speed, the Bentley Continental GT Speed coupe and convertible boast a 626-hp twin-turbo 6.0-liter W-12 capable of propelling the two-door models to 60 mph in 4.0 seconds at to a top speed of 206 mph and 203 mph, respectively. The Speed models get a color-matched front splitter, side skirts, and rear diffuser. Exterior lighting and 21-inch wheels get a dark tint and brake calipers are painted red. Inside, the Speed models get contrasting stitching, while a diamond quilt pattern is available.
BMW 2 Series Active Tourer
BMW might just create more niches than any other automaker. Although it shares its name with the rear-drive 2 Series coupe, the front-drive BMW 2 Series Active Tourer four-door hatchback shares its chassis and powertrains with the MINI Cooper. The 218i Active Tourer is powered by a 134-hp turbocharged 1.5-liter I-3 mated to a six-speed manual or automatic, while the 225i is powered by a 228-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter I-4 and available eight-speed automatic. BMW estimates 0-60 mph times of 9.3-9.6 seconds and 6.8 seconds, respectively.
BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe
The BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe is the four-door coupe version of the two-door 4 Series, which is the coupe counterpart for the four-door 3 Series sedan. Oh, and the 4 Series Gran Coupe is technically a hatchback. Got that? Like the two-door 4 Series, the Gran Coupe is lower and wider than the 3 Series sedan and is offered in Sport, Luxury, and M Sport lines. Two engine choices are available: a 240-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder or a 300-hp 3.0-liter inline-six cylinder mated to an eight-speed automatic.
Officially called the Ferrari California T, a 552-hp twin-turbo 3.9-liter V-8 replaces the outgoing California hardtop convertible's naturally aspirated 483-hp 4.3-liter V-8 for 2015. Ferrari also made changes to the California T's steering, suspension, and braking systems including a new steering box, new springs, and the latest-generation Magnaride suspension. Exterior updates are influenced by the V-12 powered F12 Berlinetta as well as pay tribute to the legendary 250 Testa Rossa. Interior revisions include a new touchscreen infotainment system and a boost gauge. Ferrari conservatively estimates 0-62 mph in 3.6 seconds.
Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge
Although the Infiniti Q50 Eau Rouge hasn't been confirmed for production, officials have strongly suggested it will be made. The premium midsize sedan is powered by the beloved Nissan GT-R supercar's twin-turbo 3.8-liter V-6. While the base GT-R makes due with 545 hp, we learned in Geneva that the Q50 Eau Rouge sports 560 hp. (The GT-R NISMO makes 600 hp.) A seven-speed transmission sends power to all four wheels. Infiniti estimates 60 mph to arrive in less than 4.0 seconds. Those estimates may be conservative, as the regular 545-hp GT-R can hit 60 mph in less than 3.0 seconds.
Read on to finish the full list of the hottest luxury debuts at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show.
Jaguar XE
With the Jaguar XE, the British automaker hopes to make a splash in the premium compact sedan segment dominated by the BMW 3 Series. Not only does the Jaguar XE introduce the brand's latest aluminum intensive chassis, but also the new Ingenium engine family of 2.0-liter four-cylinder engines including gas and diesel and rear-drive and all-wheel-drive applications. Power ratings haven't been released for the new engine. We also expect to see the automaker's 340-hp supercharged 3.0-liter V-6 as an option. The lightweight chassis should improve performance as well as efficiency.
Jaguar XFR-S Sportbrake
Like the sedan it's based on, the Jaguar XFR-S Sportbrake sports a 542-hp supercharged 5.0-liter V-8 with power routed to the rear wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission. Additionally, the XFR-S Sportbrake gets a revised suspension, larger brakes and wheels with wider tires as well as a new aerodynamic package. With the F-Type convertible's "Quickshift" transmission programing, the automaker claims the super wagon can reach 60 mph in 4.6 seconds. Top speed is electronically limited to 186 mph. Unlike the sedan, the XFR-S Sportbrake likely won't come to the U.S.
Koenigsegg Agera One:1
Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg is celebrating its 20th anniversary in a mega way with a new model. Named for its 1 metric horsepower per 1 kilogram power-to-weight ratio, the 1340 kilogram (2954 pound) Koenigsegg Agera One:1 "megacar" produces 1340 metric horsepower (1321 hp U.S.) from its twin-turbo 5.0-liter V-8. The Agera One:1 is also the first production car to make 1 megawatt of power. The Agera One:1 is also lighter than the standard Agera R thanks to the latest carbon fiber technologies and other weight savings methods.
Lamborghini Huracan
After nearly a decade on sale, the Gallardo is finally replaced by the new Lamborghini Huracan. Power comes from a direct- and port-injected 601-hp 5.2-liter V-10. Peak horsepower is reached at a lofty 8250 rpm. A seven-speed dual-clutch transmission sends power to all four wheels with a nominal 30/70 front/rear split. The computer-controlled system can send up to 50 percent to the front and up to 100 percent to the rear. Lamborghini claims the Huracan can reach 62 mph in 3.2 seconds and 124 mph in 9.9 seconds.
Maserati Quattroporte Ermenegildo Zegna Limited Edition
Shown as a concept at last year's Frankfurt auto show, the Maserati Quattroporte Ermenegildo Zegna Limited Edition has been confirmed for production. Custom touches come from the Ermenegildo Zegna Italian fashion company and include seats finished in a combination of leather and herringbone-pattern fabric as well as aluminum ingot plates reading "Ermenegildo Zegna Exclusively for Maserati" mounted on the exterior and center console. Only 100 Maserati Quattroporte Ermenegildo Zegna Limited Edition models will be built and all will be powered by a 523-hp twin-turbo 3.8-liter V-8.
McLaren 650S
Slotting between the 12C supercar and P1 hybrid hypercar, the new McLaren 650S takes on the Ferrari 458 Speciale. The 650S is powered by a mid-mounted 641-hp twin-turbo 3.8-liter V-8 mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. McLaren claims the 650S can accelerate to 62 mph in 3.0 seconds and can finish the quarter-mile in 10.5 seconds at 139 mph, while top speed is estimated at 207 mph. Although it shares about 75 percent of its components with the 12C, the 650S' front end styling and aerodynamics come from the P1.
Range Rover Evoque Autobiography Edition
Slathered in exclusive metallic Phoenix Orange exterior color, the Range Rover Evoque Autobiography Edition sports unique exterior and interior treatment as well as increased performance including sharper handling, larger brakes, and a more powerful engine. Exclusive exterior changes include a new grille, lower front fascia, clear headlight and taillight lenses. Inside, the Autobiography is available in six different colors of leather and special logos. The 281-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter I-4 makes 41 hp more than the standard model and power is routed to all four wheels via a new nine-speed automatic transmission.
Rolls Royce Ghost Series II
The Rolls Royce Ghost Series II receives only minor updates including a revised front bumper with larger air intakes and reshaped headlights with LED daytime running lamps and a new active high-beam system. The hood has also been reshaped and 21-inch forged aluminum wheels are available. Interior details have also been revised including electric thigh supports for the front seats and new rear "lounge seats" that angle passengers toward each other. More infotainment technology is available. Power still comes from a 565-hp twin-turbo 6.6-liter V-12 mated to an eight-speed automatic.
Lexus RC 350 F Sport
Slotting between the over-the-top 480-hp RC F and the standard RC 350 coupes, the Lexus RC 350 F Sport may be just what the doctor ordered. Powered by the same 306-hp 3.5-liter V-6 and eight-speed automatic as the standard RC 350 coupe, the RC 350 F Sport gets improved handling thanks to its driver-selectable Adaptive Variable Suspension (AVS) that automatically adjusts damping based on mode. An available Lexus Dynamic Handling system adds four-wheel steering and variable gear ratio steering technologies.
Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe
Although based on the flagship S-Class sedan, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe rides on a shorter wheelbase (124.6 inches vs. 116 inches) and is 8.5 inches shorter in length and 2.7 inches shorter in height. The S550 Coupe model is powered by a 448-hp twin-turbo 4.7-liter V-8 with power going to all four wheels. Inside, the S-Class Coupe's interior features exclusive diamond-stitched Designo nappa leather available in Bengal red, saddle brown, and porcelain, while the HVAC system can ionize the air or pump in perfume.
Volvo Ocean Race Edition: V40, V40 Cross Country, V60, V70, and XC60
The Volvo Ocean Race Edition models celebrate the Volvo Ocean Race's 40th anniversary and are available on the V40, V40 Cross Country, V60, V70, and XC60 wagons and crossovers. Volvo Ocean Race Edition models are available in four exclusive exterior paint colors including Ocean Blue II, Bright Silver, Black Sapphire, or Crystal White. Other exterior details include unique chrome details, Ocean Race Badges, and special 17- or 18-inch wheels. Inside, orange stitching contrasts with the black or blond leather upholstery, while more Ocean Race logos are found throughout the interior.
What was your favorite luxury-car debut from the 2014 Geneva Motor Show?
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NOVI PETRIVTSI, Ukraine (REUTERS) - A sprawling forested estate of graceful waterways and summer houses - half the size of Monaco but just one hour's drive from Kiev - stands as a symbol of the folly of Ukraine's fugitive president.
Even the most cynical Ukrainians, who on Saturday streamed to see Viktor Yanukovich's luxury estate, rubbed their eyes in disbelief when they were confronted by the scale of the opulence he built around him and kept secret from the outside world.
There were Australian and African ostriches, stretching their legs. There were hares darting around people's feet - clearly unused to large numbers.
Deer and billy goats - their cages neatly labelled - were hunkered down, slightly alarmed at the numbers of sudden visitors.
All this in a country where the average salary is less than US$500 (S$633) a month.
Yanukovich, 63, who fled into hiding on Saturday as the turmoil of three months confrontation with his people caught up with him, relaxed at weekends in luxury behind high walls patrolled by scores of security guards.
When the dream ended and Yanukovich's staff fled the Gatsby-like mansion in the early hours of Saturday, the Kiev protest movement that had opposed him invited Ukrainians to go to see the opulence Yanukovich lived in.
As they poured in their thousands, by foot and by car, onto the 140-hectare grounds for a first glimpse at a luxury they could only suspect, Ukrainians gawped in wonderment at the fairytale surroundings.
What they saw reflected more the inflated dreams of a Middle East potentate - with all the attendant obsessions with security - rather than a rough-hewn man from the gritty eastern Ukraine who got to the top the hard way.
The incongruous presence of ostriches - labels said they were from Australia, Africa and South America - suggested a weakness for 'nouveau riche' status symbols.
Yanukovich bought a small house on the plot at the start of his presidency in 2010. Subsequently, according to local media, he acquired control of the full estate which exists today through a chain of companies with which he had close interests.
Beyond a five-floor Russian-style house - some said it was his guest house - a stone staircase opened up to a landscaped vista of water features, arboreal walkways and tree-lined avenues stretching into the distance.
Few people - apart from Yanukovich's chosen few and family - have visited a secret place which has been charted by satellite images that show a helicopter pad and a golf course.
Locals said that up to 3,000 security and support staff would arrive when Yanukovich planned a major social event.
With Yanukovich obsessed by security and fear of attack, they had to leave their mobile phones at the entrance to the grounds and pick them up only on leaving, locals said.
Over the years journalists have often tried to penetrate the security cordon - often with unfortunate consequences.
Journalist Tetyana Chernovil broke into the heavily-guarded grounds last year and though she escaped she was badly beaten months later after.
"This is a monument to a tyrant which we want to show the people," said Mr Eduard Leonov, a parliamentary deputy from the far-right nationalist Svoboda party.
Graeco-Roman statues - a Goddess covering her modesty with her hair, lovers intertwined - decorated the lawns. Ornate ponds - half frozen on Saturday - nonetheless bubbled with water being pumped through them. Love-seats and colonnaded meeting places dot the estate.
There is a Russian bath-house - closed to the public on Saturday with an opposition protester's helmet on a chair across the door. On a hilltop, looking down on the Dnipro river through trees, was a plaza for a barbecue.
Families and lovers out for a different sort of Sunday afternoon excursion, posed for family album snaps at a once-in-a lifetime occasion.
Most shook their heads in wonderment at the ambitions of a president who had always proclaimed that he was on the side of the poor people of Ukraine.
"We did not expect anything like this. It is really extensive and all done with our money, the money of ordinary people. It really is too much for one person. It's very emotional when you see something like this," said Mr Serhiy Remezovsky, who had brought his wife and nine-month old son.
His friend Roman Gretsky suggested that the estate should be turned into an orphanage or something recreational for the children of Ukraine.
Some sneered at decor which seemed over-the-top for a president known for his cultural shortcomings, having once described the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov as a "great Ukrainian poet".
Standing in front of a colonnaded portico, with a Grecian urn lying on its side, Lyudmila Golbtsova, 26, a developer from Kiev, sniggered. "A normal person doesn't build this sort of stuff. It's such a waste of money."
The vanished president had his own production line of fresh meat. Cows, sheep and goat could be seen through the window of a large livestock pen - though staff refused to open the doors to inquiring visitors.
Yanukovich appeared, too, to like trees. One newly-planted tree, situated between two cooing statues of Graeco-Roman lovers in a superbly-tended garden, had a notice that proclaimed that it had a life expectancy of 300 years.
One could squint through the windows of a 3,500 square metre greenhouse, its lights blazing, where beans and other vegetable shoots were being cultivated.
Further back, ostriches of all sizes and colours plodded up and down 'ostrich runs' nervously pecking at the wire.
In other cages - very popular with children brought by their parents - deer, goats and boar looked quizzically at visitors.
Guards from among the protesters, helmeted and bearing shields, said the service staff left early on Saturday, some in an armoured personnel carrier. The guards were adamant that Yanukovich himself had not been there for three days at least.
"Who did he take himself for?" asked this correspondent in conversation with another traveller on the way back to Kiev. "For God," he replied.

subset: commoncrawl


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Cape May Officer Scott Krissinger's dashboard camera showed him sprinting toward the pickup Monday night and pulling out the driver as the vehicle was engulfed in flames and smoke. It also showed him going back a second time to make sure there are no passengers.
Police Capt. Rob Sheehan said the department is very proud of Krissinger, who has been on the force for six years.
"He's a hero in every sense of the word," he told WMGM-TV.
Krissinger said the smoke was so thick he couldn't see anything, but he downplayed his actions.
"I think any of us officers at the Cape May Police Department, they would have done the same thing," he told the TV station. "It just happened to be me."
The pickup's driver, Gerald Ferrill, 61, of Mays Landing, remained hospitalized in critical but stable condition, police said.
Police said Ferrill was apparently overcome by heat and smoke that entered the cab from the burning engine compartment.
Witnesses said the truck may have had a flat tire before catching fire.


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What is the Paleo Diet?
Also referred to as the caveman diet, the hunter-gatherer diet and the Stone Age diet, the paleo (short for Paleolithic) diet is an approach to eating modeled after the diets of our ancient ancestors. Simply put – it involves eating like a caveman!
The paleo diet attracted medical interest as early as the 1890s, but it didn't become well known until 2002 when Dr. Loren Cordain published his book "The Paleo Diet."
Cordain's philosophy outlined a primitive diet that was comprised mainly of meats, fish and seafood, fruits, seeds, nuts and vegetables. Primitive man did not have organized farming, so their diets excluded cereal grains, legumes and dairy.
What Are the Benefits of the Paleo Diet?
So, why eat like a caveman now? Paleo proponents believe that the modern Western diet largely is to blame for the most common modern Western diseases including heart disease, cancer and obesity. They contend that a return to Paleolithic eating promotes reduced risk of disease, stabilizes blood sugar, supports healthy weight and reduces inflammation in the body. Paleo followers also cite increased energy, clarity and endurance.
Getting Started
A paleo approach to eating includes high-quality, lean animal proteins such as grass-fed meats, organic poultry, wild-caught seafood, fish and organic eggs. Rounding out the diet are fresh or dried, whole, non-processed fruits, fresh vegetables, nuts and seeds. (Note: Strict paleo followers avoid starchy vegetables such as potatoes and corn.)
The paleo diet does allow for one modern-day addition: healthy oils. The theory is that while Paleolithic man consumed optimal levels of fat through organ meats and wild game, modern man doesn't have the appetite for or access to these sources. To fill in gaps, minimally processed olive, flaxseed, walnut, macadamia, coconut and avocado oils are all allowed.
What's Off Limits on the Paleo Diet?
Foods produced by farming are not permitted. This means no grains, dairy or legumes, including peanuts, beans, peas and lentils. Processed foods such as breakfast cereals, breads, pasta, beer, peanut butter and tofu, also are off limits. Refined sugars, added salt, refined oils (such as vegetable oil) and artificial sweeteners are also not allowed. Some paleo fans make exceptions for very minimally processed foods with paleo-approved ingredients such as canned coconut milk (containing coconut and water only).
Paleo Meal Planning Tips:
Is it hard to cook for a paleo diet? Not at all. Check your local library or online for detailed grocery lists, meal plans and recipe ideas. Paleo pro tip: Grilling is one of the top ways to add flavor to paleo dishes without loading up on salt. In addition, slow cookers or Instant Pot®-style multi-cookers make batch-cooking meats a breeze!
Paleo-friendly snacks: Cut-up fruits and veggies, as well as hard-boiled eggs, nuts and seeds, are easy go-to snacks. You'll also find a number of prepared paleo-friendly snacks, including grain-free granolas (such as Simple Truth™ Grain Free Original Granola Paleo Friendly), 100% fruit snacks and paleo-approved jerky. Becoming an avid label reader is your best tool in staying paleo strong. Look for foods with short ingredient lists and no added salt, sugar or chemicals.
Paleo-friendly meals: Try topping cooked, mashed cauliflower or lightly steamed, spiralized zucchini noodles with sliced grilled steak and a hearty portion of grilled onions, mushrooms and tomatoes. Add some chopped, fresh herbs or a squeeze of lemon to curb salt cravings. For a light but satisfying meal, toss fresh greens with raw or cooked chopped vegetables and cooked, shredded chicken. Top with a dressing of mashed avocado mixed with olive oil and lime juice to taste plus a hearty sprinkle of chopped, toasted almonds.
Safety Considerations
Is the Paleo diet safe? Some followers view it as an effective short-term weight-loss strategy while others consider it a healthy long-term lifestyle.
Thoughtful meal planning can provide adequate fiber, B vitamins and iron, which can be easy to miss while excluding whole grains. Followers also should be mindful of meeting calcium requirements since the paleo diet excludes dairy, beans and tofu.
Talk to your doctor or a registered dietitian to be sure the paleo diet is appropriate for you and that you are getting the nutrients you need.
A Note on Macros
Unlike some other popular diets, the paleo diet doesn't dictate strict macro ratios (recommendations for how many grams of carbohydrates, protein and fat a person should eat every day). In general, paleo dieters will consume similar ratios of fat and protein with a lower percentage of carbs. In his book, Cordain recommends a daily intake of 38 percent protein, 39 percent fat and 23 percent carbohydrates.
Eating a variety of approved foods until full is recommended over calorie counting.


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The objective of the photometric calibration process is to tie the
SDSS imaging data to an AB magnitude system, and specifically to the
"natural system" of the 2.5m telescope defined by the photon-weighted
effective wavelengths of each combination of SDSS filter, CCD
response, telescope transmission, and atmospheric transmission at a
reference airmass of 1.3 as measured at APO (see transmission curves for
SDSS 2.5m telescope).
The calibration process ultimately involves combining data from three
telescopes: the USNO 40-in on which our primary
standards were first measured, the
SDSS Photometric Telescope (or PT) , and the SDSS 2.5m telescope.
At the beginning of the survey it was expected that there would be a
single u'g'r'i'z' system. However, in the course of processing the
SDSS data, the unpleasant discovery was made that the filters in the
2.5m telescope have significantly different effective wavelengths from
the filters in the PT and at the USNO. These differences have been
traced to the fact that the short-pass interference films on the
2.5-meter camera live in the same vacuum as the detectors, and the
resulting dehydration of the films decreases their effective
refractive index. This results in blueward shifts of the red edges of
the filters by about 2.5 percent of the cutoff
wavelength, and consequent shifts of the effective
wavelengths of order half that. The USNO filters are in ambient air,
and the hydration of the films exhibits small temperature shifts; the
PT filters are kept in stable very dry air and are in a condition
about halfway between ambient and the very stable vacuum state. The
rather subtle differences between these systems are describable by
simple linear transformations with small color terms for stars of
not-too-extreme color, but of course cannot be so transformed for very
cool objects or objects with complex spectra. Since standardization is
done with stars, this is not a fundamental problem, once the
transformations are well understood.
It is these subtle issues that gave rise to our somewhat awkward
nomenclature for the different magnitude systems:
Previous reductions of the data, including that used in the EDR,
were based on inconsistent photometric equations; this is why we
referred to the 2.5m photometry with asterisks: u*g*r*i*z*. With the
DR1, the photometric equations are properly self-consistent, and we
can now remove the stars, and refer to u g r i z photometry with the
The photometric calibration of the SDSS imaging data is a multi-step
process, due to the fact that the images from the 2.5m telescope
saturate at approximately r = 14, fainter than typical
spectrophotometric standards, combined with the fact that observing
efficiency would be greatly impacted if the 2.5m needed to interrupt
its routine scanning in order to observe separate calibration fields.
The first step involved setting up a primary standard
star network of 158 stars distributed around the Northern sky.
These stars were selected from a variety of sources and span a range
in color, airmass, and right ascension. They were observed repeatedly
over a period of two years using the US Naval Observatory 40-in
telescope located in Flagstaff, Arizona. These observations are tied
to an absolute flux system by the single F0 subdwarf star BD+17_4708,
whose absolute fluxes in SDSS filters are taken from
Fukugita et al. 1996 As noted above, the photometric system
defined by these stars is called the u'g'r'i'z' system. You
can look at the table containing
the calibrated magnitudes for these standard stars.
Most of these primary standards have brightnesses in the range r = 8 -
13, and would saturate the 2.5-meter telescope's imaging camera in
normal operations. Therefore, a set of 1520 41.5x41.5
arcmin2 transfer fields, called secondary patches,
have been positioned throughout the survey area. These secondary
patches are observed with the PT; their size is set by the field of
view of the PT camera. These secondary patches are grouped into sets
of four. Each set spans the full set of 12 scan lines of a survey
stripe along the width of the stripe, and the sets are spaced along
the length of a stripe at roughly 15 degree intervals. The patches
are observed by the PT in parallel with observations of the primary
standards and processed using the Monitor Telescope Pipeline (mtpipe).
The patches are first calibrated to the USNO 40-in
u'g'r'i'z' system and then transformed to the 2.5m
ugriz system; both initial calibration to the
u'g'r'i'z' system and the transformation to the ugriz
system occur within mtpipe. The ugriz-calibrated patches
are then used to calibrate the 2.5-meter's imaging data via the Final
Calibrations Pipeline (nfcalib).
The PT has two main functions: it measures the atmospheric extinction
on each clear night based on observations of primary standards at a
variety of airmasses, and it calibrates secondary patches in order to
determine the photometric zeropoint of the 2.5m imaging scans. The
extinction must be measured on each night the 2.5m is scanning, but
the corresponding secondary patches can be observed on any photometric
night, and need not be coincident with the image scans that they will
The Monitor Telescope Pipeline (mtpipe), so called for historical
reasons, processes the PT data. It performs three basic functions:
There is a document
describing photometric equations used in items 2 and 3 in detail .
The final calibration pipeline (nfcalib) works much like mtpipe,
computing the transformation between psf photometry (or other
photometry) as observed by the 2.5m telescope and the final SDSS
photometric system. The pipeline matches stars between a camera
column of 2.5m data and an overlapping secondary patch. Each camera
column of 2.5m data is calibrated individually. There are of order
100 stars in each patch in the appropriate color and magnitude range
in the overlap.
The transformation equations are a simplified form of those used by mtpipe.
Since mtpipe delivers patch stars already calibrated to the
2.5m ugriz system, the nfcalib transformation equations have the following
mfilter_inst(2.5m) = mfilter(patch) + afilter + kfilterX,
where, for a given filter, mfilter_inst(2.5m) is the
instrumental magnitude of the star in the 2.5m data [-2.5 log10(counts/exptime)],
mfilter(patch) is the magnitude of the same star in
the PT secondary patch, afilter is the photometric
zeropoint, kfilter is the first-order extinction
coefficient, and X is the airmass of the 2.5m observation. The
extinction coefficient is taken from PT observations on the same
night, linearly interpolated in time when multiple extinction
determinations are available. (Generally, however, mtpipe calculates
only a single kfilter per filter per night, so
linear interpolation is usually unnecessary.) A single zeropoint
afilter is computed for each filter from stars
on all patches that overlap a given CCD in a given run. Observations
are weighted by their estimated errors, and sigma-clipping is used to
reject outliers. At one time it was thought that a time dependent
zero point might be needed to account for the fact that the 2.5m
camera and corrector lenses rotate relative to the telescope mirrors
and optical structure; however, it now appears that any variations in
throughput are small compared to inherent fluctuations in the
calibration of the patches themselves. The statistical error in the
zeropoint is usually constrained to be less than 1.35 percent
in u and z and 0.9 percent in gri.
With Data Release 1 (DR1), we now routinely meet our requirements of
photometric uniformity of 2% in r, g-r, and r-i and of 3% in u-g and
i-z (rms).
This is a substantial improvement over the photometric uniformity
achieved in the Early Data Release (EDR), where the corresponding
values were approximately 5% in r, g-r, and r-i and 5% in u-g and i-z.
The improvements between the photometric calibration of the EDR and
the DR1 can be traced primarily to the use of more robust and
consistent photometric
equations by mtpipe and nfcalib and to improvements to the PSF-fitting algorithm and flatfield methodology in the Photometric Pipeline (photo).
Note that this photometric uniformity is measured based upon
relatively bright stars which are no redder than M0; hence, these
measures do not include effects of the
u band red leak (see caveats below) or the
model magnitude bug.
All calibrated magnitudes in the photometric catalogs are
given not as conventional Pogson astronomical
magnitudes, but as asinh
magnitudes. We show how to obtain both kinds of magnitudes from
observed count rates and vice versa. See further down for conversion of SDSS magnitudes to physical fluxes.
For both kinds of magnitudes, there are two ways to obtain the
zeropoint information for the conversion.
Here you first need the following information from the tsField
aa = zeropoint
kk = extinction coefficient
and airmass
To get a calibrated magnitude, you first need to determine the
extinction-corrected ratio of the observed count rate to the
zero-point count rate:
= 53.907456 sec
f0 = 10-0.4*aa
f/f0 = counts/exptime * 100.4*(aa + kk *
Then, calculate either the conventional ("Pogson") or the SDSS
asinh magnitude from f/f0:
mag = -2.5 * log10(f/f0)
mag = -(2.5/ln10)*[asinh((f/f0)/2b)+ln(b)]
Note: These values of the softening
parameter b are set to be approximately 1-sigma of the sky
noise; thus, only low signal-to-noise ratio measurements are affected
by the difference between asinh and Pogson magnitudes. The final
column gives the asinh magnitude associated with an object for which
f/f0 = 10b; the difference between
Pogson and asinh magnitudes is less than 1% for objects brighter than
The calibrated asinh magnitudes are given in the tsObj
files. To obtain counts from an asinh magnitude, you first need to
work out f/f0 by inverting the asinh
relation above. You can then determine the number of counts from
f/f0 using the zero-point, extinction
coefficient, airmass, and exposure time.
The equations above are exact for DR1. Strictly speaking, for
EDR photometry, the corrected counts should include a color term
cc*(color-color0)*(X-X0) (cf.
equation 15 in section 4.5 in the EDR paper), but it turns out
that generally, cc*(color-color0)*(X-X0) < 0.01 mag and the
color term can be neglected. Hence the calibration looks
identical for EDR and DR1.
The "flux20" keyword in the header of the corrected frames
(fpC files) approximately gives the net number of
counts for a 20th mag object. So instead of using the zeropoint
and airmass correction term from the tsField file,
you can determine the corrected zero-point flux as
f/f0 = counts/(108 * flux20)
Then proceed with the calculation of a magnitude from
f/f0 as above.
The relation is only approximate because the final calibration
information (provided by nfcalib) is not available at the
time the corrected frames are generated. We expect the error
here (compared to the final calibrated magnitude) to be of order
0.1 mag or so, as estimated from a couple of test cases we have
tried out.
The SDSS photometry is intended to be on the AB system (Oke
& Gunn 1983), by which a magnitude 0 object should have the
same counts as a source of Fnu =
3631 Jy. However, this is known not to be exactly true, such that the
photometric zeropoints are slightly off the AB standard. We continue
to work to pin down these shifts. Our present estimate, based on
comparison to the STIS standards of Bohlin,
Dickinson, & Calzetti~(2001) and confirmed by SDSS photometry and
spectroscopy of fainter hot white dwarfs, is that the u
band zeropoint is in error by 0.04 mag, uAB =
uSDSS - 0.04 mag, and that g, r, and
i are close to AB. These statements are certainly not
precise to better than 0.01 mag; in addition, they depend critically
on the system response of the SDSS 2.5-meter, which was measured by
Doi et al. (2004, in preparation). The z band zeropoint is
not as certain at this time, but there is mild evidence that it may be
shifted by about 0.02 mag in the sense zAB =
zSDSS + 0.02 mag. The large shift in the
u band was expected because the adopted magnitude of the
SDSS standard BD+17 in Fukugita
et al.(1996) was computed at zero airmass, thereby making the
assumed u response bluer than that of the USNO system
We intend to give a fuller report on the SDSS zeropoints, with
uncertainties, in the near future. Note that our relative
photometry is quite a bit better than these numbers would imply;
repeat observations show that our calibrations are better than 2%.
As explained in the preceding section, the SDSS system is nearly an
AB system. Assuming you know the correction from
SDSS zeropoints to AB zeropoints (see above), you can turn the AB
magnitudes into a flux density using the AB zeropoint flux
density. The AB system is defined such that every filter has a
zero-point flux density of 3631 Jy (1 Jy = 1 Jansky = 10-26
W Hz-1 m-2 = 10-23 erg s-1
Hz-1 cm-2).
S = 3631 Jy * f/f0
Then you need to apply the correction for the zeropoint offset
between the SDSS system and the AB system. See the description of SDSS to AB conversion
The u filter has a natural red leak around 7100 Å
which is supposed to be blocked by an interference coating. However,
under the vacuum in the camera, the wavelength cutoff of the
interference coating has shifted redward (see the discussion in the
EDR paper), allowing some of this red leak through. The extent of
this contamination is different for each camera column. It is not
completely clear if the effect is deterministic; there is some
evidence that it is variable from one run to another with very similar
conditions in a given camera column. Roughly speaking, however, this
is a 0.02 magnitude effect in the u magnitudes for mid-K
stars (and galaxies of similar color), increasing to 0.06 magnitude
for M0 stars (r-i ~ 0.5), 0.2 magnitude at r-i ~
1.2, and 0.3 magnitude at r-i = 1.5. There is a large
dispersion in the red leak for the redder stars, caused by three
To make matters even more complicated, this is a detector
effect. This means that it is not the real i and
z which drive the excess, but the instrumental colors
(i.e., including the effects of atmospheric extinction), so the leak
is worse at high airmass, when the true ultraviolet flux is heavily
absorbed but the infrared flux is relatively unaffected. Given these
complications, we cannot recommend a specific correction to the
u-band magnitudes of red stars, and warn the user of these
data about over-interpreting results on colors involving the
u band for stars later than K.


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Notifications have become a mainstay of modern computing. While people routinely only perform a single task, our computers continually juggle many, so knowing when our devices have carried out some job in the background has become a critical piece of data. While a notification makeover is a marquee feature of the soon-to-be-released iOS 5, Mac users have had their own notification platform for more than five years in the form of the open-source software Growl.
Growl 1.3, released Monday, boasts a number of changes, including new features and new rules for development. But its most significant change may be the fact the utility is now available from the Mac App Store—and only the Mac App Store.
What's in store
That change of venue required some shifts. For example, rather than visit System Preferences to adjust Growl's settings, as with earlier versions, you now simply launch the new Growl app. The Growl Project hopes this will, at least, partially solve the problem of confusing update reminders. All updates will instead be pushed through the Mac App Store's own mechanism.
Joining Apple's online store has also opened an avenue to sustained development of the product. The end-user edition of the software will be sold through the store for $2. "The general idea here is that we'll be able to fund Growl development going forward," said Growl project lead Christopher Forsythe. "The general conclusion we came to is that we need to fund development going forward or that Growl would likely stop being developed altogether."
There are less tangible benefits as well. The Mac App Store is a way for Growl to showcase its compliance with Lion's new sandboxing security technology, and, of course, the vetting process for being in the store in the first place. Both will help potential users understand that Growl is a safe application with explicit approval from Apple.
But Growl's presence in the store isn't a death knell for the software as an open-source project. "Growl is definitely still open source," Forsythe told Macworld in an interview prior to Monday's release of Growl 1.3. "Currently our [software repository] is locked down but once 1.3 is out, we'll open it up." Despite the end product only being available through the Mac App Store, independent users will still be able to download and compile the source code from Growl's site, as per the terms of Growl's BSD license.
Feature presentation
Of course, its appearance in the Mac App Store isn't the only change in Growl 1.3. Like iOS notifications, Growl gets a makeover; it even has its own version of iOS 5's Notification Center in the new Rollup feature. "[Rollup] will display messages that came in while you were away," Forsythe said. "Everyone who uses Growl will love this in my opinion."
Rollup also paved the way for another feature: a History log, much like what you'd find in many browsers. By visiting Growl's History pane, one can revisit notifications that happened five minutes or five days ago, complete with the ability to search if they're looking for something in particular. These can be especially handy for folks who have a lot of notifications, helping solve the problem of seeing a pop-up out of the corner of your eye, only to have it vanish forever.
A framework job
However, this new delivery method also means that applications that previously installed Growl as a part of their own installation process (such as Dropbox, some HP drivers, and Adobe Creative Suite 5) will no longer be able to do so with the latest version. On the upside, this solves the other portion of the aforementioned update-reminder annoyance.
Once developers have integrated the latest version of Growl's Software Development Kit (SDK), they will have access to a new version of the framework that can display what is affectionately called a "Fire and Forget" or "Mini Growl." That's a simple notification alert, but one that doesn't allow for much customization on its own; in order to change the look and feel of these alerts, the end user would have to get the Mac App Store application and make changes there.
The latest version of the framework will deliver its data to the 1.3 version of the application through another of its new features: a new networking standard. This networking protocol, GNTP, isn't new to Growl for Windows users, as it was first developed by that team and later adopted by Growl for Mac. One perk of this new feature is that cross-platform users will gain the ability to share their notifications across their computers, regardless of operating system.
The times they are a changin'
One change necessitated by the shift to the Mac App Store is that the utilities that previously came packaged with the Growl distribution will have to be spun off as their own applications or discontinued. The ever popular GrowlMail add-on has been picked up by Growl contributor Rudy Richter for continued independent development.
As for the rest of the bundled applications, Forsythe told Macworld that both the GrowlTunes add-on, which hooks into iTunes, and the HardwareGrowler, which keeps users updated about hardware status, will follow Growl into the Mac App Store. "The command line utility growlnotify will be an additional download that people can click a button to download from our website," Forsythe said. However, other add-ons, like GrowlSafari, will be left behind unless an enterprising individual takes the initiative to start developing them.
There are also some personnel changes afoot. Richter, who has worked on Growl for a long time, has assumed a new role as lead developer for the project. He replaces former lead developer Peter Hosey, who moved on to other pursuits in August. While Hosey is taking a step back, Forsythe describe him as "a good friend" and says he's "still welcome to work on Growl at any time."
New life to live
Numerically, Growl 1.3 may sound like only a minor update over Growl 1.2.2, but the new version is still a major milestone in the history of the open-source Mac software project, thanks to its feature set and new distribution method. It's not the first such product finding new life and sustainment through the Mac App Store, nor will it be the last, but it is a testament to the kind of projects that can make their way in Apple's marketplace.
Now available in the Mac App Store as a 7.3MB download, Growl 3.1 runs on Mac OS X 10.7 and requires a Mac with a 64-bit processor. If you're currently running Growl 1.2.2 or earlier, download and run the Growl uninstaller prior to purchasing and downloading Growl 1.3 from the Mac App Store. Your preferences and settings should be untouched after running the uninstaller.
[Derik DeLong is a frequent Macworld contributor.]


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- Set the bar on a rack to just below shoulder level. Once the correct height is chosen and the bar is loaded, step under the bar and place the back of your shoulders (slightly below the neck) across it.
- Hold on to the bar using both arms at each side and lift it off the rack by first pushing with your legs and at the same time straightening your torso.
- Step away from the rack and position your legs using a shoulder width medium stance with the toes slightly pointed out. Keep your head up at all times and also maintain a straight back. This is your starting position.
- Begin to slowly lower the bar by bending the knees and hips as you maintain a straight posture with the head up. Continue down until the angle between the upper leg and the calves becomes slightly less than 90-degrees. The front of the knees should make an imaginary straight line with the toes that is perpendicular to the front.
- Begin to raise the bar as you exhale by pushing the floor with the heel of your foot as you straighten the legs again and go back to the starting position.
- Complete five sets of five reps at appropriate weight for your level.
Pull-ups, Chin-ups, Push-ups
Why: "These are great for core and upper body strength, and body control," says Taylor.
Practice good form—keep your core engaged, spine neutral, head and legs stable—and try to increase repetitions weekly (if you did six push-ups last week, shoot for seven the next).
More: How to Execute a Pull-Up
Kettlebell Swing
Why: "Kettlebell swings build the posterior chain, and runners generally have weak glutes and hamstrings," says Taylor. "They'll also get your heart rate way up there."
- Place the kettlebell between your feet. Hinge at the hips as if you are about to sit in a chair and bend the knees until your hands can grasp the handle.
- Start the swing by popping the hips forward until your knees are locked out, keeping the glutes tight. Swing until the kettlebell reaches chest height.
- Let the kettlebell swing back between your legs, hinging again at the hips, and letting your wrists hit the sides of your groin so the kettlebell is tucked right underneath the buttocks.
- Immediately and explosively pop your hips forward again to perform the next rep.
- Complete five sets of five reps at appropriate weight for your level.
Dumbbell Plank Row
Why: "Everyone thinks they need to do crunches or other abdominal work, but this exercise makes the abdominals work hard because they have to support the spine," says Taylor.
- Get into a plank or start of a push-up position, with both hands gripping dumbbells. Feet should be shoulder-width apart.
- Contract your abdominal muscles to maintain a straight back.
- Row one dumbbell up towards the chest by bending at the elbow. Maintain a straight back throughout the move.
- Return the dumbbell to the ground and repeat on the other arm. This is one rep.
- Complete five sets of five reps at appropriate weight for your level.
More: Prevent Running Overuse Injuries in 6 StepsSign up for your next race.
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So goodbye Windows XP. You know, I'm actually sad. Since it came out in 2001 I've grown from being indifferent ("Windows 2000 in a dress"), through slightly awed (when Tablet PC edition introduced handwriting recognition that actually worked), to comfortable and complacent. For a long time there, XP was just the way things were, an everyday ubiquitous tool. After using it for over ten years there was very little about it I couldn't mend, maintain, or make better. And now Microsoft have declared those skills redundant.
You can see their argument: They haven't made anything out of XP for years now. Well yes but…
The thing is, there's a big secret about IT. In the terms I'll be using in the exam I should be studying for right now, information technology cannot provide a strategic advantage (Carr, Harvard Business Review 2003).
In lay terms: IT is for suckers.
When it all began, people thought that computerising a business would mean radically improved efficiency and so lead to greater profits. That seems to make sense, yet somehow it never did. You do increase efficiency, sure. But that almost never translates into more money. This is because very quickly everybody was able to invest in the same technology, levelling the playing field again.
Only now to keep up with your competitors you have to keep on investing in your system, on a hamster wheel of hardware and software upgrades. That was never such a problem with filing cabinets. So bizarrely the technology may actually cost you more than you'll ever save through improved efficiency – but you need it now just to stay in business. Nobody makes money directly from IT except the people who sell you the IT; Microsoft in particular have made billions and billions and billions and billions.
So I think they kind of owe us one.
It's not that I don't want to upgrade. I have a Windows 7 computer too and I quite like it. It seems fussy compared to XP, but it has some good points. I actually like a lot about Windows 8, despite its cool reception. Though Microsoft seem to have lost all sense of direction, their stuff has never looked better.
No, upgrading is just out of the question. Between my own devices and ones I administer for my family I am looking after four XP computers. At over €100 each, that's far more money than I am either able or willing to give to Microsoft just now. And even if these computers can run Windows 7 or 8, they will not run it well. So I'd be paying them money to convert PCs that are fine into ones that are annoying.
Is there another way? Well yes. In a word: Linux. Two, possibly three of these computers will become Linux boxes now. High time too. But that is not for everyone, and I will want at least one of them to be able to run non-Linux applications like Photoshop. Can that be done?
I'm going to see, I guess… While continuing to use an unsupported operating system is not a course of action I'd recommend to anyone who doesn't want to get their computer invaded, held to ransom by criminal gangs and used as a spam-vomiting zombie, how would you go about it?
Well there's one safe way…
Don't go online. It sounds a bit crazy now I know, but some of us still remember how computers were actually quite useful even before the Internet. If there's a job you need to do that doesn't actually require a live data stream it is perfectly feasible to disconnect. Your XP computer will be perfectly secure – forever!
(Well, you'll still have the problem of moving your files onto and off it without getting it infected the old fashioned way.)
But if you really have to go online – say, you have no other computer – there's…
PLAN B [>>>Not Recommended!<<<]
1. Stop being an administrator. Ridiculously, every account on an XP computer is an administrator by default. That means you can do pretty much what you like to the system. Unfortunately it also means that if you catch a virus while logged in as administrator, it can do pretty much what it likes too. It is far, far more secure to use a Limited Account. You may have to log in as admin to install software or other such tasks at times, but the security will be worth it. And if this is a family member's computer that you mind for them, there's a good chance that they won't see any difference. Simply go to the User Accounts section of Control Panel and change the account type.
Unfortunately though there is some software that doesn't like running without complete privileges, Adobe Photoshop being a particularly egregious example. If – like me – you need to work in Photoshop and then email the results, seriously consider logging out of your admin account and into a limited one before you go online. Ridiculous I know – Adobe and Microsoft really need to share the blame for that one – but far safer.
2. Tool up. When XP support goes, updates for Microsoft Security Essentials go with it. So if this is all you have in the way of antivirus you'll need to upgrade. Currently I'm testing the different free options that are out there, and I'm really liking Bitdefender. This because it scores almost if not as well as the best available when it comes to detecting viruses, but demands very little of your system's resources. In fact it seems significantly lighter than even Microsoft's minimalistic solution, despite offering far better protection. Wish I'd used it years ago now…
3. If the OS can't be updated, at least keep all your application software patched. A great tool to help with this is Secunia's Personal Software Inspector, which checks the versions of what you have installed against its database of the latest ones, and lets you know when there's an update you need. Sometimes it can even do the updating for you.
Apart from that, the usual rules still apply – just more so. Never use Internet Explorer (the version XP has is hopeless outdated now anyway), use Firefox or Chrome or… anything else. Make sure the device you use to connect to the Internet has some level of inbuilt protection like an NAT firewall. Only connect to known secure networks, not random Wi-Fi signals. Avoid visiting criminal corners of the Internet. Don't install anything, ever, unless you're absolute sure it's safe. Be careful out there.


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Submit a Claim Online
Or to speak to a representative, call:800-999-1030
We have a full line of products tailored to meet your needs coupled with programs specifically designed for teachers.
Find out why Horace Mann is right for you.
New partnership combines technology and education to reduce roadway dangers
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 2, 2019--Illinois-based insurer Horace Mann has partnered with Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT) to launch HMDrive, a safe driving mobile application for educators.
HMDrive provides feedback to drivers at a historical and trip-level basis. It records and scores trips based on driving behaviors like speeding, hard-braking, cornering, phone distraction, and harsh acceleration. Drivers receive personalized dashboards, score trends, trip details and personalized driving tips. Drivers also compete for spots on city, state and school district leaderboards.
"At Horace Mann, we are dedicated to providing solutions for educators at each stage of their lives," said Bill Caldwell, Executive Vice President of Property & Casualty at Horace Mann, the nation's largest financial services company focused on providing insurance and retirement solutions for the education market. "Distracted driving is increasingly a factor in accidents, and affects drivers nationwide. Our partnership with Cambridge Mobile Telematics allows us to provide a powerful tool in HMDrive to our educator customers that leverages CMT's proven method to influence driving behavior, leading to safer roads in communities across the county."
Horace Mann plans to make the HMDrive application available to educators in select areas of the country in support of its continued efforts to address distracted driving and promote safe driving behaviors.
For CMT, the world's largest smartphone telematics provider, its partnership with Horace Mann aligns with its larger mission to teach safe driving behaviors through engagement and behavioral insights. CMT's underlying technology, which HMDrive is built upon, has shown success in changing driver behavior, specifically a 35% reduction in phone distraction, 20% reduction in hard-braking, and 20% reduction in speeding within 30 days of using the technology.
"Education is the foundation upon which quality of life is constructed," said Dennis Frawley, CMT's Vice President of Global Sales and Strategic Development. "Horace Mann protects the futures of those who take care of our children's futures. Working together with Horace Mann allows us to empower those who have a unique potential to influence the next generation of drivers."
About Horace Mann
Horace Mann(Horace Mann Educators Corp. (NYSE:HMN)) is the largest financial services company focused on providing America's educators and school employees with insurance and retirement solutions. Founded by Educators for Educators ® in 1945, the company is headquartered in Springfield, Illinois. For more information about the company, visit horacemann.com.
About Cambridge Mobile Telematics
CMT's mission is to make the world's roads safer. CMT's DriveWell platform measures driving quality, scores driving performance, incentivizes safer driving, and provides crash and claims services for insurers, rideshares, and fleets. Since its first product launch in 2012 that pioneered mobile usage-based insurance, CMT has become the world's leading mobile telematics and analytics company with its phone-only and phone+tag programs. CMT's award-winning DriveWell platform is used by leading insurers, commercial fleets, cellular carriers, and other organizations in more than 20 countries, improving safety for millions of users. To learn more, please visit cmtelematics.com and follow CMT on Twitter @cmtelematics.
Contact: MichelleEccles, Public Relations, Horace Mann, 217-788-5394, firstname.lastname@example.com
© 2023 Horace Mann Educators Corporation
CUSTOMER SERVICE Call 800-999-1030


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Protecting Your Internet Activities and Electronic Data
With more of our financial activities occurring over the Internet, it is important to be aware of the risks these activities entail and steps you can take to reduce the risk that someone will illegally gain access to your private information or financial accounts.
Common Internet Scams
- Auction fraud – This may take many forms including emails saying you have a second chance to buy an auction item, non-delivery of an item purchased in an auction, defective merchandise, or receiving cheaper merchandise.
- Advance payment frauds – Emails asking for help in getting money out of a country or advising you that you won a lottery lead to requests for money to cover legal fees, taxes, bribes, processing costs, and taxes.
- Phishing – Emails notifying you that an institution or store need confirmation of account information lead to a fake (or spoofed) website that looks legitimate but is just a place to disclose personal information to fraudsters.
- Hot stock promotions – Emails, online newsletters, and bulletin boards may be nothing more than a scam artist's attempt to have you drive up the price of a stock so they can sell their shares. This is often used with cheap and thinly traded stocks.
Protecting Your Online Activities
Be careful using public computers. Using a computer at a cyber café or a free computer at a trade show can be dangerous. The computer may be programmed to capture user names and passwords. If you use this type of computer make sure no one is looking over your shoulder to memorize your personal data and be sure to sign off when you are done.
If you are using the Internet for financial transactions, be sure the sites you visit are secure. Most secure sites have URLs that start with "https://" instead of the normal "http://." Some websites may display a logo indicating it is secure, but make sure you know the site is one you trust.
Wireless Internet networks have become common and convenient. Some are secure and some are not. Be careful using wireless networks that are free and not secure. Wireless home networks deserve attention as well. It may be time-consuming or more expensive to have a secure network at home, but that is better than having a fraudster sitting in a car on your street monitoring your activities and gaining access to your files and information.
It is important to install anti-virus software on your computer and keep it up to date. The safe holds true for firewalls and security patches for your operating system.
Many websites you visit require a user name and password. Having a strong password will make your online activities safer. Unfortunately, many passwords are chosen to be easily remembered rather than to protect the user. Some common passwords that hackers could easily guess are password, user name, your real name, your address, 123456, abcdef, or just a number. With just a four-digit number, there are only 9,999 combinations and a sophisticated hacker could probably figure that out in seconds.
Strong passwords are at least six characters long and preferably eight. They should contain a mixture of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters (#, $, ^, &,!,?, {, >, etc). They should not be based on personal information and not be based on words found in a dictionary.
The difficulty of long and mixed passwords is that they can be hard to remember. One suggestion is to create a password from a sentence that you are likely to remember. For example, start with the sentence "My children John and Mary are 12 and 16 years old." Then use the first letters of the words, characters, and numbers to create the "McJ&Ma12&16yo" password.
Changing passwords often and using different at different websites also increases protection. Keep any written record of your passwords in a safe location.
Disposing of CDs and Diskettes
The best way is to physically destroy the CD. Shred it if you have a shredder that can handle it without difficulties. Otherwise, you can break the CD into pieces. Be careful and wrap the CD in a paper towel to avoid shattered plastic.
Diskettes can be formatted to remove the data if you plan to reuse them. Otherwise, it is a good idea to break them into pieces or shred them.
Disposing of a PC Hard Drive
With the ways you use your PC and financial software you may use, think of the highly sensitive information that is stored on your hard drive. It may have tax returns, investment records, financial account information, and other personal data. It may also have records of your user names and passwords used at dozens or hundreds of websites. This is information that must be removed before disposing of an old PC.
Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to completely erase that data from your hard drive. Deleting files and even formatting your hard drive does not completely remove the data. With the right tools, a skilled technician could reconstruct your data.
There are some software products that claim to overwrite an entire hard drive and make it impossible to recover the data. A better, easier, and cheaper solution is to remove the hard drive and physically destroy it.
If you are considering disposing of, donating, or recycling a PC, protect yourself and your data by removing destroying the hard drive.


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Moto Boy (Or how to build a beautiful and functional artist website)
It has become quite easy these days to create functional and beautiful websites with all the different social media services available to artists. One great recent example is the website from Swedish artist Moto Boy, who has managed to combine different accounts from popular services like Flickr, YouTube and SoundCloud in a great way.
The site was created by Martin J. Thörnkvist and Max Adolfsson and here's what they told us:
Our goal was to make "the best official artist site" around. Of course we decided to use as many existing platforms as possible. Soundcloud was the obvious choice for music. To me music should be the central (might seem obvious but if you look around at artist sites it's not) part of the site. I'm really happy by the way the Soundcloud platform solved a handful of problems fort. Storage and data traffic is taken care of and the player is highly customizable enabling us to upload the music once and present it in different ways across the site.
Last year, Martin also wrote a great blog post titled "Revival Of The Official Artist Website" that I highly recommend reading if you're currently considering to (re)build your own website.
Let's have a closer look.
Site hosting:
The site is powered by publishing platform WordPress and self-hosted on the own domain motoboy.se with a customized design template. It's free to use.
Start page:
In the top right screenshot, you can see that the start page combines different services structured in three columns:
- Left column: the news items are posted as blog posts via WordPress, some include YouTube and Vimeo embeds. Makes it easy to go into the WordPress Dashboard, write a quick post and it jumps to the top of the news section when you hit publish.
- Middle column: the SoundCloud waveform player, a Facebook Fan box, latest pictures on Flickr and a newsletter sign up box.
- Right column: the tour dates each link to an individual overview page where they integrated the great cross-platform commenting tool Disqus. See the most recent comments and Twitter blurbs in the right column.
The Music page:
Click 'Music' in the top menu it'll bring you to Moto Boy's discography where you can choose the album you'd like to check out. The screenshot below is the overview page for his most recent album Lost In The Call where you can either choose to play the full album in the artwork set player, watch the music video or jump straight to an individual track page with the waveform player, lyrics and credits.
The Gallery page:
The Gallery is a collection of recent picture sets pulled from photo hosting service Flickr. Click on a photo and you'll first get a dynamic preview and if you want you can click-through to the individual photo page on Flickr.
The Shop page:
Moto Boy makes it easy to purchase his stuff. Either hit the link to iTunes or buy his albums and merchandise straight from the site's own shop – powered by the WordPress Shop Plugin. You're able to select either downloads, cds or vinyl records. Payments are possible with all major credit cards and are processed by PayPal.
Make sure to click-through to check the site out for yourself and we hope this post could give you some inspiration if you too are currently working or thinking about using a bouquet of highly useful services for your own artist website.
What's your experience? Any suggestions? Post a comment below and let everyone know.


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How to Beat the Summer Heat in Orlando with Your Air Conditioner
Warmer temps are right around the corner in Orlando, which means it's almost time to turn on your air conditioner. But just because it's about to be the air conditioning season doesn't mean you have to fork out a fortune to keep your home comfortable. From increasing your home's efficiency to adding a programmable thermostat, there are a number of ways to beat the summer heat without driving up your monthly energy expenses.
Fresh Filtration
One of the easiest ways to keep your air conditioner running at peak performance is by changing your home's air filter every month during the summer. Your air conditioner's peak season is just around the corner, which means that you'll be relying on it a lot. Running your air conditioner constantly can quickly build up dirt and dust on your air filter, making it tougher for your system to move the same amount of air. Over time that can point to AC repair, which no one wants to deal with when the temperatures in Orlando get their hottest. Keeping a fresh filter in your system can help you improve efficiency and keep your home more comfortable while you're at it.
Programmed Performance
Programmable thermostats aren't new, but they have changed quite a bit over the last number of years, allowing homeowners to experience new levels of control and comfort. What often goes unrecognized is how a perfectly programmed thermostat can help improve your air conditioner's efficiency and make a dent in your monthly energy bills. By keeping your home warmer when you are away, you can give your air conditioner a break and reap the benefits of the savings that come with not cooling an empty home.
Keep Windows Covered
When you leave your home, closing your blinds and shades can help keep unwanted heat out of your home. When left open, that heat can trigger your air conditioner to turn on even when you're not there, driving up costs and unnecessarily using energy that you're not even feeling the benefits of. Even in climates like Orlando you can take advantage of blackout curtains to help keep even more heat out of your home.
Knowing that the temperature is on the rise in Orlando brings about great joy, so don't let high energy bills change that. There are a host of easy changes you can make to improve efficiency and keep your home comfortable. If you'd like to know more about beating the heat this summer, give the experts at Service Experts Heating & Air Conditioning a call at 407-329-7661 or set up an appointment online to get your air conditioner service completed before the temperatures soar.


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Intel has provided some really interesting video tours of its data centers. Last year we highlighted a tour of a former silicon chip fabrication facility that Intel converted into a high-density data center. Today we present a video tour of a two-story "greenfield" (new construction) data center featuring a highly efficient design. Intel data center manager Neal Smith walks us through some the facility, which houses 220 racks of gear and is managed remotely, with only a security guard on site. The equipment area features a fully-contained hot aisle and cabinets of blade servers with power densities of 13kW to 16kW per cabinet. This video runs about 5 minutes, 30 seconds.
For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.


text: Being your best support, AORUS gaming chair with the quality materials and adjustable design lets you game in absolute comfort for prolonged gaming sessions. Learn how to put together the AORUS AGC300 gaming chair with this step-by-step instruction video. It's super easy and only takes a jiffy. Turn on the subtitles for detailed instructions.


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ECB/Fed Support for the European Banking System – 750 billion USD, and counting …
One point that I have been shouting from the proverbial roof tops in my research, to partners and colleagues is that 2012 may well be the year when all major central banks will be conducting both conventional and unconventional monetary easing at the same time. I think this is a very strong testament not only to the severity of the ongoing debt crisis in the developed world, but also to the propensity of central banks to choose inflation as the desired route to recovery. We need not initially discuss whether they are deploying the proper set of policies or even whether such policies represent moral hazard or a Ponzi scheme on government debt.
The main thing is to realise that this is an unprecedented global monetary experiment.
My message to investors in 2012 would then be not to underestimate this inflation bias by part of global central banks. Inflating your way out of too much debt won't work in the long run without considerable defaults and/or economic stress (hyper inflation). Events since 2008 are ample evidence of this, but the simultaneous inclination to create inflation and debase your currency (to generate more inflation and exports) by all major central banks will continue to exert a profound effect on asset prices and the global economy.
In so far as goes the idea that an investors' interest in asset prices is conditioned on return and volatility we can say that central bank policy will affect both. Financial assets will certainly benefit from excess liquidity, but the unravelling of too much debt through inevitable defaults and the central bank policies themselves will generate volatility. Whether the combination of such volatility and return means that you should stay out of the market entirely is a question for the individual investor. I believe that
From a macroeconomic point of view, the downbeat assessment remains however that it is difficult if not impossible to paint a picture of where sufficient growth is going to come from and on the investment side of things, the higher level of volatility will tend to shake the foundation of investors even if money is to be made for short periods of time.
Most attention has been centered on the ECB, whether the 3y LTRO represent QE and whether the continuing rejection to buy government bonds outright means that the ECB is a laggard among global central banks (seethis excellent report by Hinde Capital for additional analysis relative to the points below).
750 Billion USD, and counting …
Europe remains the center of the global debt crisis, a role the continent has now decisively taken over from the US which stood at the forefront in the initial phases of the crisis in 2008. Apart from the almost endless summits and meetings among government officials the significant measures continue to be the ones coming from the ECB.
In my view, the European interbank market is virtually dead and dusted, and the ECB and the Fed are now effectively the only thing between Europe's banks and large scale failures. Since early September 750 billion USD worth of liquidity has been provided to the European banking system of which 100 billion sits on the Fed balance sheet through USD swap lines.
Who will bet against the final 3y LTRO auction to take this beyond one trillion USD?
Spanish and Italian curves are now nicely steep again after a brush with inversion which obviously was one of the main objectives even if it was always debatable whether banks would buy government bonds with the liquidity taken up at the ECB.
The question is; how do you unwind all this? 750 billion USD to roll short term liabilities with the ECB and the Fed seems to me to be one of the biggest gamble in monetary history.
While the BOE and the Fed have been transparent in their QE efforts and the BOJ never really having left the zero bound the ECB has been more covert. However, it is my contention that with the expansion of the securities market programme (SMP) in 2011 to buy considerable amounts of government bonds (1) as well as the 3y LTRO the ECB is now fully engaged in quantitative easing.
I base this on two points.
- The ECB has acted as a sovereign debt buyer of last resort in times of crisis. It is common knowledge in the market that the ECB has been Italian and Spanish bonds in times of particular stress on the notion that these two economies in particular could not be allowed to fatally succumb to the debt snowball dynamics.
- ECB support for the banking system in the form of collateralised liquidity and wholesale funding is not temporary but structural and permanent in nature. The interbank market in Europe is not working and has not been working since the crisis started in 2008.
The ECB will of course vehemently deny this but investors should understand that such denial is mainly out of political reasons. When Draghi unveiled the ECB's attempt to backstop the crisis in Europe by offering full allotment liquidity on a 3y basis, the market was disappointed because the central bank president also reiterated that the ECB would not step up its purchases of government bonds.
I think that the ECB will be forced into a much more direct and active role where unsterilized purchases in the primary market (monetisation) will be needed, but I fully appreciate the political issues. We are currently in a delicate situation where new governments in most of the involved countries are saddled with forced mandates to impose austerity. It is very difficult for all parties involved to push this agenda if the ECB had stepped up a full backstop. Moral hazard risks are consequently paramount here.
As such, investors must content with the ECB's attempt to shore up the European banking system which is no little feat given the bank rollover schedule in 2012 as well as new Basel II regulation which will further impair already shaken balance sheets. The ECB's initiatives then follows the steady deterioration of conditions in the European (indeed global) banking system which initially culminated in the coordinated action by global central banks to supply dollars through Fed swap lines and which found its European answer in the ECB's decision to provide unlimited liquidity yet again.
The problems look ominous for European banks and the global financial system in general. No matter what, European financial institutions will have to delever significantly which will spread its tentacles wide and far due to the high penetration by European banks in emerging markets (Eastern Europe in particular).
Behind the scenes however, significant ink has been spilled to debate and speculate on to the exact significance of the ECB's liquidity operations.
John Hempton for example suggests that the ECB's policy move is an open invitation to play the carry trade game using almost free liquidity to buy higher yielding government bonds.
Well the Euro fix is in. Whether it works – that is another question. But the fix is this: European banks can borrow unlimited amounts for three years to buy Euro government debt. The debt often yields 5 percent. The money costs 1 percent.
I agree that the incentives are certainly there for the banks to play this game especially in the context of government bonds as zero risk weighted assets. The problem is that many European banks have spent more than a year and two stress tests to get rid of substantial amount of peripheral government debt (which do not count as zero risk weighted assets according to Basel III) and as such weak governments are unlikely to benefit from this.
The flip side of this is that most of the liquidity taken up by banks go straight back to the ECB at the deposit facility which is now standing higher than at any time between 2008 and 2010.
Quote Reuters
The euro zone banking system starts the new year awash with record levels of liquidity but few signs that institutions are prepared to lend to each other, leaving money markets frozen.Most of the near half trillion euros of three-year funds borrowed from the European Central Bank in the last week of 2011 have made their way back to the ECB's overnight deposit account.
The Reuters piece goes on to argue that most of the liquidity will probably go to aid the large refinancing need banks face in 2012 and thus effectively as a replacement for a non-functioning interbank market that would normally be able to roll this financing. If this does nothing to solve the problem of sovereign insolvency and illiquidity it will work wonders through the fact that banks won't act as a drag on their respective sovereign's balance sheet as long as the ECB is involved.
I would note though that even though the liquidity is mainly reflected in reserves held at the ECB, it still represents excess liquidity as noted by Danske Bank.
Some market commentators have argued that the first 36 months long-term refinancing operation (LTRO), in which banks took EUR490bn in total, has so far not worked as planned because the extra liquidity has simply been placed on the deposit facility at the ECB. However, this argument is false.The sharp increase in outstanding open market operations (MRO+LTRO) increases excess liquidity (defined as open market operations plus recourse to the marginal lending facility minus autonomous liquidity factors minus reserve requirements) and this excess liquidity shows up as deposits at the ECB in just the same way as it did in 2008-10.
However, nothing is easy and despite the fact that collateral can be posted for liquidity the sovereign is still on the hook as my friend Edward Hugh points out.
Banks are being encouraged to keep rolling over what are basically NPLs by financing them at 1% at the ECB (foreclosing on them in Spain and keeping the property on the books may cost something like 8% in comparison). But the ECB isn't assuming the risk here, the national sovereign implicitly is, and is getting in deeper by the day.
This is certainly true by the letter of the law but one has to wonder whether the ECB will ever get paid back here. I mean 3 years is an awful lot of time. The ECB can roll these loans as long as need be (it has already effectively been rolling bank funding since 2008) while maintaining the figue leaf that it is not funding sovereigns. This may be true, but it is effectively funding the sovereign's banks and postponing the day of reckoning which is bank failures or nationalisation or both.
If the ECB is then forced take a hit on the collateral or the loans themselves, it will need to create the money to pay for these loans by printing euros. This sounds as a plan to me except that it does not solve the funding risks of governments which may or may not be able to ask their banks for help. The likely answer is that they won't be unless the ECB and EU decide to wield the ultimate weapon of financial oppression which would be to penalise reserves over a given level with negative interest rates at the same time as banks would be forced, through regulation, to hold government bonds.
But Edward makes another interesting point;
Looking at the Greek PSI, what they would try and do (if all this gets that far, I mean if the Euro holds together long enough in this Byzantine world) ) is load up the private sector share of the haircut, and keep the ECB as untouchable official sector. At the limit they can use ELA to keep the banks afloat while the sovereign restructures and then recapitalises.
Why would any ex Eurozone third party want to be counterparty to anything which might end up being subordinated to ECB exposure later on down the line. The more I think about it the more it seems to me that the 3 yr LTROs might end up choking the European banking system to death.
It is difficult to disagree on the gist of this point, namely that the ECB is digging itself a very big hole. If banks can exchange under water assets at the ECB for a deposit asset at the ECB (albeit with a negative carry) the ECB is running the risk that it becomes the sole counterparty of bad assets in the euro zone in which case seniority will mean very little.
The Greek situation is a good example. Private creditors face an almost certain 100% wipeout exactly because they represent such a small tranche of the total stock of debt. In such a situation the asymmetric relationship between subordinate and senior debt holders mean that the latter essentially become equity holders. But once subordinate creditors are wiped out the turn comes to the senior debt tranches and the further the ECB goes along the road of providing full allotment liquidity the higher will be its implicit direct claim on assets of all sorts of qualities.
In conclusion, it is my view that the ECB is now the only thing between the economy and widespread bank failures, but I also concur that the consequence of this is a permanent outsourcing of the interbank market in Europe to the ECB's balance sheet and, quite possibly, Fed's USD swap lines.


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WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama has given Bill Clinton a gift – Osama Bin Laden's porn collection!
Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden had built up a 'fairly extensive' stash of pornography at his final hideout in Pakistan's Abbottabad city.
The Obama Administration said this morning that they have released all the Osama Porn to former President Bill Clinton, who was very happy to receive the stash.
The Saudi-born terrorist, who had evaded capture for a decade, was killed on May 2 in a top-secret operation involving a small team of US Special Forces in Abbottabad, located 50 miles northeast of Islamabad and 40 miles east of Peshawar.
Bin Laden and Bill Clinton regularly watched porn together in the 1990s.
The enormous cache of pornographic videos is the biggest haul by American forces, ever since they raided the house of Charlie Sheen.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity about classified material, would not say whether there was evidence that Laden or the other men living in the house had acquired or viewed the material, it added.
Condolezza Rice, former Secretary of State, also had watched porn with bin Lade and reported to Congress on the size of his penis.
The discovery of the pornography may not be surprising in a collection of five computers, 10 hard drives and dozens of thumb drives and CDs whose age and past ownership is not known.
In a 2002 "letter to the American people," Laden denounced American culture for its exploitation of women's bodies in dress, advertising and popular culture.
"Your nation exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools, calling upon customers to purchase them," he wrote.
Bin Laden's Yemeni wife had recently claimed that the killed al-Qaeda leader was not on kidney dialysis, but used to take Viagra during his stay in his Pakistani compound.
Bill Clinton is also taking viagra and says that he is enjoying "very much" the videos he received from President Obama. "I enjoyed almost a minute of the film, 72 Virgins, that was a favorite of Osama's," Clinton said.
Hillary is not a big porn watcher, but she does like the fact that Bill keep himself occupied in his room.


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For those who don't have kids in the schools or don't carefully follow the nuances of school policy and governance, it must seem surreal that the subject of high school counseling is still an unresolved and controversial topic in this community.
Surely, after establishing it as a district priority two years ago, and then agreeing last June to give Gunn the time to form a committee of parents, staff and students to develop recommendations for its program, there would be a clear understanding of goals, metrics and the lens through which high school counseling options would be evaluated.
But sadly, we are still mired in a leadership vacuum that persists in spite of the school board's growing frustration and impatience.
As one board member after another asked Tuesday night in various ways, how can proposed changes to the high school counseling programs be evaluated by the board and community if there is not yet an overall common mission, goals and metrics for the district?
And if the one firm requirement that the board agreed to almost a year ago was "comparability" of counseling services between the two high schools, how is it possible that the district staff has not yet developed a definition of comparability to guide the work being done?
The astonishing answers, proferred Tuesday by Associate Superintendent Michael Milliken and Superintendent Kevin Skelly, were that they decided to defer that work until after Gunn had developed its recommendations, and that, according to Skelly, the staff is "struggling with defining comparability."
It is but another indication of a disconnect between the expressed wishes of the school board and the actions of the superintendent and his lieutenants, and the result is a process that is upside down, grossly inefficient and a set-up for frustration and further discord.
Teams at both Gunn and Paly have been working hard to analyze and develop plans and tactics for improving their counseling program without knowing what the overarching common strategy is for the district other than a still-to-be-defined concept of "comparable services and outcomes."
District administrators seem as determined as ever to deflect responsibility and accountability for policy development to the school sites, even when the board takes the unusual step of directing the formulation of common, district-wide policy and goals.
No well-functioning organization develops tactics, programs or products without having first determined strategies and goals, yet that is exactly what has been taking place regarding high school counseling for the last two years.
Administrators told the school board this week they wouldn't be able to return with proposed common district counseling goals and metrics until early fall. Yet by then the Gunn and Paly staffs will be well on their way to implementing changes to their counseling programs.
Regardless of what one thinks about the different counseling models at the high schools, this is an absurd way to operate a unified school district, and we are pleased to see board members express their frustrations more openly than they have in the past.
The community owes thanks to the Gunn counseling advisory committee, which worked hard and under the challenges of a consensus decision-making model came up with 40 recommendations aimed at giving students expanded counseling opportunities.
These recommendations, if fully implemented, should increase the number of connections Gunn students have with an adult on campus, one key goal expressed by many in the community.
The Gunn staff, put under severe time pressure to report this week for no apparent reason, drafted an implementation plan that all agree needs more work and that wasn't ready for board discussion.
Over the next few weeks, at the request of the board, the Gunn staff will develop a clearer presentation on how and when it proposes to implement the recommendations over a three-year time period, the metrics for success and an outline for who will be accountable for the work.
To its credit, the board made clear that it doesn't want a rushed, partial plan from Gunn, but one that makes clear to the community exactly how the Gunn counseling system will be changing.
In the continued absence of a clear district policy on counseling, that is, unfortunately, about the best we can hope for.


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Free New Jersey Thyroid Cancer Survivors' Workshop Will Feature Physician Speakers, Personal Trainer, and Survivor/Caregiver Roundtables
On Saturday, April 18, 2009, everyone interested in thyroid cancer is invited to the New Jersey Thyroid Cancer Survivors' Workshop. ThyCa: Thyroid Cancer Survivors' Association, Inc., will offer this FREE one-day workshop for thyroid cancer survivors, their families, caregivers, and friends.
This educational and supportive event, will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the South Jersey Healthcare Fitness Connection, 1430 West Sherman Avenue, Vineland, New Jersey 08360.
This event is free. You may attend part, or all, of the workshop. You may register online at www.thyca.org (form is available on the web site) or onsite at the workshop.
Physician speakers and survivor/caregiver roundtables will be on the day's program. Topics will include:
- Thyroid Cancer Questions & Answers
- Thyroid Cancer Surgery
- Post Operative Surveillance & Follow-Up Testing
- Dealing with Fatigue
- Thyrogen
- The Doctor-Patient Relationship & Patient Advocacy
- Survivor/Caregiver Support Group Roundtables
Featured Speakers include:
- Andrew Steven Heller, M.D., Surgeon, South Jersey Healthcare/Regional Medical Center in Vineland, NJ, as well as Elmer NJ Division, and Kessler Memorial Hospital, Hammonton, NJ. Dr. Heller is certified by the American Board of Surgery, American Board of Thoracic Surgery, and American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers. He has been Assistant Clinical Instructor in Surgery at the State University of New York in Buffalo, NY, School of Medicine, and is currently Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Surgery UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson School at Camden, NJ
- Glenda Smith, M.D. Attending Radiation Oncologist, South Jersey Healthcare System since 2000. Previously she spent 9 years at Temple University as an Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology. She is certified by the American Board of Radiology.
- Brittany Raup, Personal Trainer, South Jersey Healthcare Fitness Connection. Ms. Raup is an
AAAI/ISMA (American Aerobic Association International/International Sports Medicine Association) Certified Personal Trainer, as well as Rowan University Certified Cholesterol Screener, American Red Cross Certified Heartsaver CPR and AED training for infants, children, and adults, and Certified in First Aid by the American Red Cross.
In addition, a Thyrogen representative will be available to answer questions about Thyrogen access/insurance issues when using Thyrogen in preparing for radioiodine ablation after surgery, and in followup testing and monitoring of the most common types of thyroid cancer.
For more information about the workshop, e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com or call 1-877-588-7904.
Visit ThyCa's web site at www.thyca.org for further details about the speakers, program, and directions.
The workshop is sponsored by ThyCa: Thyroid Cancer Survivors' Association, Inc. (www.thyca.org) ThyCa is a national nonprofit 501(C) (3) organization providing person-to-person support, support groups, the free downloadable Low-Iodine Cookbook, free online newsletters, awareness materials, free one-day workshops, and other resources to thyroid cancer survivors, their families, and the public at no charge. ThyCa also funds thyroid cancer research grants, sponsors Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month in September, and will hold the 12th International Thyroid Cancer Survivors' Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 16-18, 2009.
More information can be obtained by visiting www.thyca.org, writing to PO Box 1545, New York, NY 10159-1545, calling toll-free to 877-588-7904, faxing 630-604-6078, or e-mailing to email@example.com.