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The Northern Territory government is running a nation-wide competition to design a tropical city at Weddell, 80 kilometres south of Darwin. Submissions for the first stage of the 50,000 person city are being invited after a public forum was held last week. Weddell Taskforce project manager Brendan Lawson said the design process would present a host of uniquely Territorian constraints including: biting insects, cyclone proofing, Aboriginal heritage demands, environmental concerns and inundation. “It will require a multi-disciplinary response that focuses on all planning matters from engineering right through to architectural aspects," he said. “The government has made it very clear that it wants something special from Weddell and I don’t think we are the repositories of all wisdom in this area, so the opportunity to tease out the very best from experts in the field to bring something special to Weddell is very much a desirable outcome." Lawson said the aim was to deliver the first blocks in Weddell by 2014. “We won’t be handing over a city of 50,000; we will be handing over a neighbourhood of a city," he said. The government’s brief envisages Wedell as a city connected through public transport with a reduced dependence on cars, environmentally friendly housing and jobs within close proximity to the city centre. Territory Growth Planning Unit executive director Dave Malone said critics of the Weddell project were oblivious to Darwin’s future population needs. “Darwin will grow rapidly over the next 10 to 20 years’ time driven not just by natural growth here but the major investment from companies like Inpex [who are planning a $24 billion gas project] as well," he said. “The population growth rate for Darwin is around 3.1 per cent and now there is a significant pipeline of land coming through." In order to address this growth, Mr Malone said the city would need high-density development and the Weddell project. Northern Territory Opposition Leader Terry Mills said Labor had no overarching strategic plan for the Top End. “The Weddell project has been on the table for nearly 30 years and they are viewing this as a political problem," he said. “They can’t pull off a subdivision in an existing town and now we’re led to believe they are actually going to build a whole city." The Australian Financial Review

Fosters’ Imperial War Museum scheme dealt funding blow Foster + Partners’ proposed revamp of the Imperial War Museum in London has been torpedoed following a decision not to give the £71 million project heritage lottery funding An application by the museum for £23.5 million to pay for the cost of the project’s first phase was shot down by the Heritage Lottery Fund despite having already shelled out more than £565,000 for Foster + Partner’s design services. The £29 million initial stage included the redevelopment and expansion of the First World War galleries, effectively doubling the museum’s display space. Later phases include a new ground-level entrance, landscaping at the front housing the ‘iconic’ naval guns, twenty per cent more gallery space, upgraded visitor facilities and a larger and temporary exhibition space. A spokesperson for the museum said: ‘We are disappointed that our grant application to the Heritage Lottery Fund was unsuccessful, particularly as the new First World War galleries are an important part of the national commemorations to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War in 2014. ‘However, we remain committed to our plans to transform our flagship branch, IWM London and to be the UK cultural leader of national and international centenary commemorations. ‘It has always been our intention that redevelopment work at IWM London will be phased in line with the generosity of donors, with a view to delivering the First World War Galleries and centenary programme in 2014 as the highest priority. ‘We are continuing to fundraise from a variety of sources including donations from major philanthropists, Trusts & Foundations, corporate partners, Friends of the Imperial War Museum and the public.’ The ambitious masterplan was due to complete in 2019. Previous story (22.12.11) Foster reveals £71 million Imperial War Museum overhaul [FIRST LOOK] Foster + Partners has unveiled these images of its proposed revamp and expansion of the Imperial War Museum’s Lambeth Road Site The first phase of the larger £71 million scheme, which is due to complete in 2019, will be the redevelopment and expansion of the First World War galleries. Budgeted at £29 million, this initial stage will be almost double twice the size of the current galleries allowing the museum to display much more of its world renowned First World War Collection. Later phases include a new ground-level entrance, landscaping at the front housing the ‘iconic’ naval guns, twenty per cent more gallery space,upgraded visitor facilities and a larger and temporary exhibition space. The museum has already started fundraising to support specific redevelopment projects within the Fosters + Partners masterplan and all ‘work will be phased in line with the generosity of donors’. Diane Lees, director-general of the Imperial War Museum said: ‘I can’t think of a more fitting way to start the transformation than with the creation of new galleries to mark the First World War centenary in 2014. The Imperial War Museum was founded during the First World War as ‘a lasting memorial of common effort and common sacrifice’ to those who played their part in the conflict. The new galleries will allow us to continue this work in the twenty-first century and help current and future visitors to learn and understand more about the causes, course and consequences of the Great War.” Previous story (AJ 05.05.10) Foster + Partners to masterplan Imperial War Museum Foster + Partners has been appointed to masterplan the Imperial War Museum’s Lambeth Road Site The site in south London is the former home of Bethlem Royal Hospital, more commonly known as Bedlam, and the project will be managed by Drivers Jonas Deloitte. Diane Lees, director-general of the Imperial War Museum, said: ‘We’re incredibly excited to be bringing on board Foster + Partners and Drivers Jonas Deloitte. Both impressed us with their blend of energy and experience, qualities we believe are essential to the team working on such an important project. ‘Our aim is to put audiences at the heart of everything the Museum does, and we’re confident our new master planning partners will help us deliver this.’ The first phase of the masterplan will be approved by the museum in September 2010 and should be delivered in time for national commemoration of the First World War centenary in 2014. Have your say You must sign in to make a comment.

Decision to reject solar farm in Devon upheld Campaigners in Devon are claiming victory after plans for a solar farm were thrown out. The council decision to reject the 45 acre solar farm near Tiverton was backed by a government inspector. Planning inspector Brian Cook ruled the scheme would have "fundamentally changed the appearance and character of the landscape". He criticised Mid-Devon District Council over the way it handled the planning case. He said there was "unreasonable behaviour, resulting in unnecessary or wasted expense" due to the council submitting some of its evidence late. 'For producing food' The council has been ordered to pay costs to the developers Juwi Renewable Energy. The company did not want to comment on the decision. Penny Mills from Campaign to Protect Rural England said there were better places for solar panels. She said: "The importance of the landscape outweighs the gains of renewable energy. There should be no more solar farms on green fields, agricultural land is for farming, it is for producing food." More than 400 people objected to the original plans to erect 23,500 solar panels on 45 acres of farmland in Morebath, near Dulverton. A Council spokesperson said "We are pleased that the Planning Inspector has upheld our planning committee's decision not to allow a large solar farm in this beautiful part of Mid Devon. "We feel that we acted reasonably throughout the process, but acknowledge with disappointment that the Planning Inspector took a different view."

[tag: science] Calgon Carbon expects EPA regulations to double demand for activated carbon While next week's climate change agenda is expected to largely curtail the construction of new coal-fired power plants, for those plants already in existence, many are at a crossroads: invest or close. And with the advancements made in its second-generation powdered activated carbon, Pittsburgh-based Calgon Carbon Corp. (NYSE: CCC) said it is well-positioned to supply coal-fired utilities as Environmental Protection Agency regulations tighten. In fact, the EPA has recommended activated carbon as the best available control technology for mercury removal. When the EPA's Mercury and Air Toxins Standards are fully implemented in April 2015, the company expects the demand for activated carbon to more than double. On Monday, Calgon Carbon Corp. and its distributor, Brenntag Canada Inc., announced the signing of a contract valued between $25 million and $30 million to supply its Fluepac powdered activated carbon to a large Canadian electricity generator to remove mercury from the flue gas of two coal-fired electric generating plants. When coal is burned to produce electricity, any mercury contained in the coal is released into a flue gas that can subsequently be emitted into the air. Coal-fire powered plants account for 50 percent of mercury air emissions in the U.S., according to estimates from the EPA. Calgon Carbon is one of the top three suppliers of activated carbon for the mercury removal market and supplies 32 electric generating units that produce 14.2 gigawatts of electricity. "The reduction in injection rates provides multiple benefits for the power generator far beyond buying less carbon," Gail Gerono, vice president for investor relations and corporate communications, said in an email. "Less carbon translates to lower transportation costs, less impact on valuable fly ash and smaller capital expenditures on activated carbon injection equipment." Additionally, she said, when power generators cut the injection rates in half, they can install smaller equipment or utilize systems to feed multiple generation units. According to the EPA, there are about 1,400 coal and oil-fired electric generating units at 600 power plants covered by the MATS standards.

The Santuario della Verna monastery in eastern Tuscany was established in the 13th century to commemorate a miracle: the appearance of stigmata wounds on the body of St. Francis of Assisi as he prayed in a nearby cave. Almost as miraculous are the rates that the monastery charges for a night in one of its 72 guest rooms: €52 (about $68), including meals in the downstairs refectory. One reason for the low prices is that the monastery pays no property taxes. Under Italian law, most buildings owned by the Catholic Church are tax-exempt, even if used for commercial purposes. That could soon change.. Existing laws say that church-owned buildings used for “purely commercial” purposes are to be taxed. But many ventures, such as the Santuario della Verna guesthouse, remain exempt because they are attached to properties used for religious purposes. (Property within Vatican City, which is a sovereign state and therefore not subject to Italian laws, would not be affected by the government’s plan.) Taxing church property could help Monti solve two problems. First, he’s looking for new sources of revenue to supplement a $40 billion austerity plan adopted by Parliament in December. With most citizens being asked to pay higher taxes, calls are increasing for the church to share in the sacrifice. Taxing all church properties would yield an additional $130 million in revenue, Paolo Berdini, an urban planner and consultant for local administrations, told Bloomberg News in January. Separately, European Union regulators in 2010 opened an investigation into the church’s tax status, after the Radical Party complained that the tax exemption distorted market competition. “The government’s initiative will allow the European Commission to close the procedure,” Monti’s announcement said. Monti was the EU’s competition commissioner from 1999 to 2004. Church officials are waiting to review the government’s plan before commenting in detail, Monsignor Domenico Pompili,a spokesman for the Italian Bishops’ Conference, said in a statement released on Feb. 16. However, he said he hoped the government would “take into account the social value of the vast nonprofit world” before taking action on the church’s tax exemption.

Dalian Iron Ore Futures Debut as China Seeks Pricing Power Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- metric ton,. “China is a natural home for iron ore trading as the biggest user,” said Wu Wenzhang, head of research at Shanghai Steelhome Information Technology Co. “There’s more than 90 million tons of inventory sitting at Chinese ports, providing perfect conditions for delivery that’s unmatched anywhere else in the world.” Imports by China rose to a record 74.6 million tons in September, buoyed by steel demand, according to data released on Oct. 12 by the customs agency. China’s purchases accounted for about two-thirds of the seaborne trade that totaled 1.18 billion tons in 2012, according to estimates by CME Group. based on last year’s average price of $128.30 a ton for ore cargoes with 62 percent iron content offloaded at Tianjin, the annual trade in the commodity is worth more than $150 billion. ‘Bodes Well’ “Judging from the first day of trading volume, the new iron ore futures attracted quite a lot of participants and we think it bodes well for more liquidity in the future,” said Gao Bo, an analyst at Mysteel Research in Shanghai. Iron ore entered a bull market in July as users in China replenished stockpiles that shrank in March to the lowest level since 2009. Prices at Tianjin measured by The Steel Index Ltd. have rallied 22 percent from this year’s low on May 31 to $134.40 a ton Oct. 17. The Singapore Exchange has the largest market for iron ore securities, with the volume of swaps cleared in September increasing 16 percent from a year earlier to 40,917 contracts, equivalent to 20.5 million tons, according to its website. Rebar Futures The Shanghai Futures Exchange started contracts for steel reinforcement-bars in March of 2009. Rebar futures are now the most-traded of any metal in China after copper, with an average of 1,486,111 lots valued at 55 billion yuan changing hands every day in 2012, according to data from the bourse. Chinese steelmakers had questioned the reliability of a price index provided by Platts that became a benchmark after producers including Vale SA and Rio Tinto Group scrapped annual contract price talks in 2010. “Theoretically, there are no obstacles for suppliers such as Vale and BHP to trade Dalian’s iron ore futures,” said Wang Shumei, an official at the bourse who helped design the contracts. “When China scrapped a licensing system for iron ore imports this year, it cleared the last hurdle to the foreign participation.” The underlying commodity for the Dalian futures is ore with 62 percent iron content that contains no more than 4 percent of impurities such as aluminum and silicon, said Wang. To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Feiwen Rong in Beijing at frong2@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Brett Miller at bmiller30@bloomberg.net

Area teens train for Jerry's Baddle to benefit ALS Reid Motter aces Nies Pieces, a class IV rapid on the Green River Narrows, during a training run for Jerry's Baddle this Saturday.SUBMITTED PHOTO Published: Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 5:56 a.m. Last Modified: Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 5:56 a.m. Reid Motter, 16, and Kristian Gaylord, 15, stared at the classroom clock as each tick-tock counted down to Jerry’s Baddle, the extreme kayaking and cycling biathlon the duo have spent months training for. The race is a fundraiser for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, held annually in remembrance of Jerry Beckwith, an avid paddler and cyclist who died from the disease in 2006. Commonly referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” ALS ruthlessly attacks nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord, progressively paralyzing the body. Event organizer Brooks Saucier said Motter and Gaylord are the youngest team to ever compete in the challenging and inherently dangerous race. “Competitors begin in Henderson County and must navigate through class IV-V whitewater in the Green River Gorge to the transition area in Polk County,” Saucier said. “The cycling component is 26 miles of grueling climbs on less-than-ideal road surfaces.” Motter, an avid kayaker, and Gaylord, a strong cyclist, said they signed up for the race because it gave them a chance to do what they loved and support a cause they identified with. “I was about to try out for the National Olympic Development junior soccer team when I found out that recurrent stress fractures had culminated in extensive damage to my hip and pelvic bone.” Gaylord said. “My soccer career literally ended overnight, and the devastation of that experience gave me an immediate connection to Jerry Beckwith losing the ability to do the things he loved.” Gaylord said he struggled with depression after his diagnosis, and that depression lingered until he discovered a new passion in cycling. ”It was a low-impact sport that is surprisingly team oriented,” Gaylord said. “I’m a social athlete and I found the same support in the cycling community I experienced on the soccer field.” A year later, he showed such promise and commitment that the employees and team riders at Sycamore Cycles in Hendersonville chipped in to buy him a high-end performance bike to replace his Craigslist clunker. “I’ve been told I’m a natural cyclist,” Gaylord said. “But I’m not an aquatic mammal at all, so I’m glad I could team up with Reid for the race.” Motter said he began kayaking at Christ School in Arden at age 14 and quickly progressed. “I have always loved outdoor activities, but kayaking just fit me perfectly,” he said. “I never dreamed I would be be good enough to do something like paddle the Green Narrows, let alone race this Saturday.” Motter and Gaylord said they are cognizant of the risks involved in each sport and strive to push their limits without exceeding them. “If you aren’t prepared or ready for a hard rapid, things quickly spiral out of control,” Motter said. “When I drop into a raging rapid, I’m so focused that I feel each stroke and movement vividly as if it was happening in slow motion.” Gaylord said he recently experienced a crash that took most of the skin off his arm, cracked his helmet and worst of all, scratched his new bike. “It’s disconcerting the only thing between me and the road is those little skinny road bike tires when I’m descending at 55 miles an hour,” Gaylord said. “It’s exhilarating and sketchy.” Motter said they aim to complete the race in just under two hours, a lofty goal given the winning time in 2012 was 2:01:36. In addition to competing, the two raised $250 in sponsorships to donate to ALS research. Both teens said their parents have worked hard to support them in their extreme hobbies. “I mean, Mom isn’t exactly happy about it,” Gaylord said. “It’s clear they would rather I had chosen something like golf, but they are very supportive.” Motter’s dad, Rich, said he credits kayaking as a positive force that has fostered his son’s maturity, decision-making skills and risk assessment. “Every time they go on a more serious run such as the Narrows where there has been fatalities and other serious accidents, we are obviously nervous until we get the phone call they are off the river,” Rich Motter said. “They are very aware of how to react in a crisis situation and understand the responsibility of being each others lifeline.” Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.

Fed tries to lower rates with a ‘twist’ $400b bond action angers Republicans, sends stocks down The Federal Reserve took steps to further lower interest rates yesterday by buying and selling $400 billion in bonds, a move that angered congressional Republicans and caused the stock market to plummet in the final hours of trading. The Fed said the decision would lower the cost of borrowing money and improve overall financial conditions, but some economists and businesses gave it a lukewarm reception saying that interest rates are already at historic lows and even lower rates are unlikely to spark growth or hiring. Interest rates and credit are not the problem, said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington. “Fear is a much bigger factor,’’ Behravesh said, noting national and global financial instability and policy gridlock. “This was an insurance policy, but I don’t think it’s going to make a big difference in boosting growth.’’ The Fed will purchase $400 billion in 6-to-30-year Treasury securities by the end of next June and sell an equal amount of shorter-term Treasury securities of three years or less. The move confirmed speculation that policy makers were planning an “Operation Twist’’ style program that would twist shorter-term investments into longer-term ones. Though larger in scale, the effort resembles a 1961 maneuver by the Fed nicknamed for a Chubby Checker song popular at the time. According to a Fed statement yesterday afternoon, the strategy “should put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates and help make broader financial conditions more accommodative.’’ The interest rate on a 10-year Treasury note, for example, fell to a new low of 1.85 percent yesterday from an all-time low of 1.9 percent. After the Fed’s announcement at 2:23 p.m., the Dow Jones industrial average fell 265 points. It closed at 11,124.84, down 283.82 points, or about 2.5 percent. Four high-ranking congressional Republicans asked Fed chairman Ben S. Bernanke in a letter delivered Monday to refrain from taking steps to lower interest rates, suggesting it could escalate the risk of high inflation. In its announcement, the Fed said inflation “appears to have moderated since earlier in the year,’’ noting that some commodity prices have declined. The Fed also said there were “other significant downside risks’’ facing the economy and cited “global financial strains.’’ Three of the Fed’s 10 voting committee members voted against the interest rate action. Elizabeth Phelan, chairwoman of the Massachusetts Association of Mortgage Bankers, said lower rates could encourage more people to consider refinancing home loans, but she didn’t think it would have a dramatic impact. “I’m not sure that in and of itself it is enough to pick us up from the economic issues we’re going through as a country,’’ she said. “Some of the core issues, like unemployment, those weigh more heavily on people going into new ventures and taking on additional debt.’’ Bernie Rubin, cofounder of Bernie & Phyl’s furniture stores, welcomed the interest rate reductions as the company looks to expand, but said it was impossible to know whether it will boost consumer spending. “It certainly can’t hurt and may be just what the economy needs right now,’’ Rubin said. Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Amherst College, said the last interest rate reduction, enacted by the Fed in August, has not yet generated many benefits, but the impact of such efforts is not always immediate. Corporations are hoarding cash right now, and consumers have drastically reined in spending. The Fed must “figure out what it can do to snap us out of this situation.’’ “It’s a big problem,’’ he said. “Realistically, the best thing they [the Fed] can do is reduce the risk of the economy falling into a recession. No one really expects that the Fed has a magic wand that can suddenly change the underlying circumstances.’’ Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist for the Economic Outlook Group, a Princeton, N.J., firm that advises institutional investors and hedge fund clients, called the action “nothing more than a distraction.’’ Many factors, including depressed housing prices and joblessness, are a drag on the economy, sapping consumer and business confidence. Businesses are sitting on more than $2 trillion in cash reserves and consumers are saving, not spending. “There is such a lack of clarity about where the economy is going in the next 6 to 12 months,’’ he said. “And I don’t think today’s action will create any.’’ Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com.

New RELEASES Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, 2014 NHIS Early Release, June 2015 Early Release of Selected Estimates Based on Data From the 2014 National Health Interview Survey NHIS Early Release, June 2015 Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, July–December 2014 NHIS Early Release, June 2015 Births: Preliminary Data for 2014 NVSR Vol. 64 No. 6, June 2015 Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Men’s Use of Mental Health Treatments NCHS Data Brief No. 206, June 2015 Communication Disorders and Use of Intervention Services Among Children Aged 3–17 Years: United States, 2012 NCHS Data Brief No. 205, June 2015 Characteristics of Children in Medicaid Managed Care and Medicaid Fee-for-service, 2003–2005 NHSR No. 80, June 2015 Three Decades of Nonmarital First Births Among Fathers Aged 15–44 in the United States NCHS Data Brief No. 204, June 2015 HIV Testing in the Past Year Among the U.S. Household Population Aged 15–44: 2011–2013 NCHS Data Brief No. 202, June 2015 Measuring Gestational Age in Vital Statistics Data: Transitioning to the Obstetric Estimate NVSR Vol. 64 No. 5, June 2015 Serious Psychological Distress Among Adults: United States, 2009–2013 NCHS Data Brief No. 203, May 2015 Data Visualization Gallery 2003–2013, non-Hispanic black and Hispanic persons were more likely than non-Hispanic white persons to report fair or poor health. Fair or poor health status ranged between 14%–15% for non-Hispanic black persons and 13%–14% for Hispanic persons, and was 8% for non-Hispanic white persons, with no significant changes during the decade in the percentage of those reporting fair or poor health within each of the three groups. Save the Date - The 2015 National Conference on Health Statistics will be held August 24-26. Visit our conference site for the latest information.

A Clitheroe charity hero who successfully fought cancer twice has been named as a “community champion” by a leading charity. Bill Honeywell, of West Bradford, who was recently awarded a British Empire Medal for his charitable services, was planning a charity cycling event at home when he was surprised by the iflorist and Rosemere Cancer Foundation teams. Iflorist, based in Burnley, provided gifts for Bill, including a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of red wine, during “Volunteers Week” earlier this month. He was named as one of Rosemere’s “Community Champions” for his service to the charity, which includes raising more than £15,000 for them since 2009. Bill (61), of Honeywell’s Estate Agents, has beaten cancer twice, with his last battle in 1999 against bowel cancer. Since then he has found a love for cycling and fundraising, especially for Rosemere, who he got involved with after his good friend Margaret Watkins lost her battle with cancer. Bill said: “When Margaret died I really wanted to do something in her memory. Her husband, Mike, told me about how well Rosemere had looked after her when she was ill. “I decided to do something big and daring, and I ended up walking all 214 Wainwright fells in the Lake District in just under two months and raised £2,000. Now a self-confessed lover of fund-raising, Bill has also been an avid supporter of Cancer Research UK since his recovery, completing a 4,500-mile cycle around the coast of Great Britain in 2011, raising over £32,000. In 2012 he cycled the 42 Hebridean Isles, raising money for Cancer Research UK and Rosemere. He also gives regular speeches and talks about his personal experiences and the many trips and journey’s he has made, the proceeds of which he gives to Rosemere. His wife, Val is also a supporter of the charity. The surprise presentation was part of iflorist and Rosemere’s blossoming partnership, with iflorist already getting involved and providing flowers and prizes for previous Rosemere fundraisers. Daniel Hill, from Rosemere, said: “Bill loved his surprise – he wasn’t expecting it at all. “It is great that we have the support from iflorist as it means we can give our volunteers a small token of our appreciation and really thank them for everything they do.” Almost Done! By registering you are agreeing to the Terms and Conditions of the website.

Public relations campaigns by Carter Malone, Obsidian land big prizes in annual contest Although the official theme of Thursday’s 20th annual Vox Awards was “20/20,” alluding to the contest’s history and offering an optimistic vision for its next two decades, the competition honoring the top public relations campaigns by local agencies could just as appropriately have been called “Year of the Woman.” That’s because both “Best in Show” top awards went to women-owned firms and a significant number of the honors handed by the Memphis chapter of the Public Relations Society of America also went to female-founded agencies. Not to mention that the PRSA Memphis president is a woman — Amanda Mauck — as is this year’s Vox program coordinator, Christina Meek. And the keynote speaker was Naomi Bata, a recent Memphis transplant from Chicago who moved here to head up the public relations division at archer>malmo. Of course, months ago when entries were being solicited and the awards ceremony was being coordinated there was no way to predict how things would turn out. But hindsight being what it is, celebrating women who excel in the communication industry would have been a great call. “We live in interesting times,” Bata said. “The world has changed and our industry has evolved and changed with it.” The 2013 competition drew more than five dozen entries, which were judged by members of the PRSA Nashville chapter. Top-level Vox awards and second-place gold certificates were handed out in categories that included brand management, media relations, social media, and video presentation. More than 100 attendees showed up for the midday program, which was held at the Holiday Inn at the University of Memphis. The gathering impressed and encouraged Mauck. “This is our chance to celebrate each other and reflect on the great stories that we’ve helped tell during the last year,” Mauck said. “We’ve seen the numbers go down a bit over the last few years, but this is an increase from 2012 and I believe it’s a positive sign of growing interest in our organization and a healthier communications industry.” The big prize, formerly known as the Vox Grandis, was rebranded as Best in Show and divided into two categories. Winning for campaigns was The Carter Malone Group for its work on a community health challenge promotion for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. “I can’t believe we won,” said Carter Malone founder Deidre Malone. “We’re a small firm, but this shows that we can produce great work, so the big guys better watch out.” Taking home the top prize for tactics was Obsidian Public Relations for its breaking news release announcing a building project for Southern College of Optometry. “I’ve got an incredibly talented team and we’re proud of the work we’ve done this past year,” said Obsidian founder Courtney Ellett. “We do our best for our clients and it’s great to be acknowledged for that by our peers.” Founded in 1952 by 10 public relations professionals, PRSA Memphis counts more than 100 members and hosts a variety of educational and social programs throughout the year. For a complete list of Thursday’s winners visit prsamemphis.org. Need Help? Call us at 1-888-789-0831. Monday-Friday: 6am-5pm / Saturday: 6:30am-11:30am / Sunday: 6am-1pm

WITH VIDEO: Jonestown Bank looking forward to 140 more years Troy A. Peters worked and lived in Lebanon County for years, but the first time he drove to Jonestown Bank and Trust Co. headquarters, he needed help. “I had to Mapquest it,” he laughed. “And I only live in Annville.” Before he came to Jonestown for that 2006 job interview — which resulted in a vice presidency that eventually led to his current position as CEO — Peters, 45, obviously didn’t know much about the bank or the town. He knew one thing — he wanted to return to community banking, and Jonestown was one of the most stable community banks around. And after celebrating 2013 as its 140th year in operation, the 10-branch network that’s still a small business is charting a course for continued growth. Executives said that could come in the form of branch growth outside Lebanon County or in online and mobile banking. One place it won’t compromise for growth, however, is its connection with the community it serves. Ed Martel Jr., the bank’s senior vice president for sales, marketing and branch management, said Jonestown strives for a hyperlocal connection at every branch, encouraging its 130 full- and part-time employees to participate in community events and to volunteer. Peters said the bank’s employees volunteered 1,300 hours of their time to community and charitable organizations in 2013. When a larger bank closed its Newmanstown office, leaving the small, unincorporated town without a bank, Jonestown jumped on the chance to open a branch at the closed location. “And now, we’re the ‘Bank of Newmanstown,’” Martel said. “Maybe that’s not as attractive to a bigger player, but it is to us. It might not be profitable to a larger bank, but it is to us.” Martel said many Jonestown executives, including him and Peters, are veterans of larger banks who had been downsized during previous mergers. Jonestown offers the opportunity, he said, to fit into a more-stable bank committed to the community. Jonestown manages $432 million in assets as of Dec. 31, according to the bank’s 2013 annual report, an in-between spot where it could be a valuable commodity to a larger bank looking for a trusted partner in Lebanon County or be primed for additional growth. Major bank players such as Bank of America, First National Bank and Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania are active in other parts of the midstate but have no Lebanon County branches. Sovereign (now Santander), PNC and Susquehanna have limited reach in the county. Peters said the last offer to buy the bank came “before my time, it was a few years ago,” and that the current slate of stockholders doesn’t seem to be interested in selling. “We have a plan that’s valuable to our shareholders,” he said. “Yes, shareholders have to entertain offers. But our shareholders believe in our model, and we have a board and management that produce exceptional results.” That attitude and business plan are part of what has endeared it to the local community, said Evelyn Isele of Jonestown. The 95-year-old lifetime resident completed a history of the bank in 2013 that the bank released in a special publication for customers and residents as part of its 140th anniversary celebration. She said not much changes at the bank — including its economic principles — and that makes it an attractive destination for doing business. “They really have a good trust (of the people),” she said. “They seem to help their customers. The people that have been there always seemed like permanent fixtures. People always liked that.” Jonestown’s success in Lebanon County could expand as well. It opened a Lancaster County branch in Ephrata in 2011 — its first outside the county — and could continue to push its boundaries into eastern Dauphin County, southern Schuylkill County or further into Lancaster County, executives said. Bank officials said they have the resources to devote to the latest banking trends, including online and mobile banking. Peters admits Jonestown sometimes is at a disadvantage with bigger banks, especially in one area: regulation. The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the government’s answer to the near-catastrophe of the recession, has forced unprecedented levels of regulation compliance on all banks, including community banks. Peters said Jonestown is paying $40,000 to $50,000 more per year than it was a couple years ago in workforce and consultants to understand and implement new compliance regulations. But he said it’s something Jonestown and other community banks will manage. “It’s not something that’s going to put community banks out of business,” he said. “And it won’t put us out of business, not after 140 years.” About Jonestown Bank and Trust Co. Year established: 1873 Assets under management: $432 million as of Dec. 31, 2013, up from $397.5 million at the end of 2012 Deposits: $364.57 million for the period July 1, 2012, to June 30, 2013 Net income: $4 million in 2013, down 1.7 percent from $4.07 million in 2012 Employees: About 130 full and part time Branches: 10 (nine in Lebanon County) Market share by deposits: Second in Lebanon County, with an asterisk. The list compiled by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. pegs the bank’s Grantville branch in Dauphin County when it’s actually in Lebanon County. Counting that branch’s deposits in Lebanon County gives the bank $357.6 million in deposits in the county, ahead of Wells Fargo at $345.9 million but still trailing Fulton’s $664.4 million in deposits.

Jaroslav Pelikan is an internationally distinguished scholar of the history of Christianity and medieval intellectual history. He joined the Yale faculty in 1962 as the Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History and in 1972 was appointed to the Sterling Professorship. He served as acting dean and then dean of the Graduate School 1973-78 and was the William Clyde DeVane Lecturer 1984-86 and in the fall of 1995. His more than 30 books include the acclaimed five-volume work The Christian Tradition. His numerous awards include the Graduate School's 1979 Wilbur Cross Medal and the Medieval Academy of America's 1985 Haskins Medal. In 1983 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Professor Pelikan to deliver the 12th annual Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, the highest honor conferred by the federal government for outstanding achievement in the humanities. In 1992-93 he presented the Guifford Lectures in Scotland, an honor considered comparable to winning the Nobel Prize. He has been editor of the religion section of Encyclopedia Britannica, and in 1980 he founded the Council of Scholars at the Library of Congress. His numerous professional affiliations also includes the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which he is president. Two years ago President Bill Clinton appointed Professor Pelikan to serve on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

Local TV Stations The Sleeping Beasts in Hyperlocal News. The reason is pretty simple: Most of them aren’t doing anything particularly interesting in hyperlocal. The key reason why TV stations aren’t moving aggressively into this space isn’t because they can’t be successful. From a scale and marketing perspective, they probably have the best opportunity to quickly own any individual hyperlocal market in the country. But the managers of the vast majority feel they simply don’t need to own online hyperlocal because their legacy businesses remain strong. Right now, most local television stations around the country are still pretty profitable. But for quite some time now analysts have predicted that local stations will ultimately play a less important role as viewers watch television online, on demand, or through set-top streaming boxes. The transfer hasn’t really happened yet en masse. Regular television still tops the list of where people get their local news. And despite the increasing use of DVRs to watch shows later and skip commercials, television ads still command top dollar. But resting on the laurels of legacy profits only takes you so far. Just ask newspaper publishers. When you really examine the local television business, it’s clear this is an industry waiting to be disrupted — and when that happens, outlets that haven’t invested sufficiently in digital won’t have much to hold onto. “The original magic of broadcasting was that it covered a large geographic area,” said Kent Collins, chairman of the radio-television journalism faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism. But these days the opportunity is in hyperlocal, and the moment demands that TV stations do something to that end. “The magic may be the curse,” he said. In this case, the curse is that current success inhibits innovation. “Still with profit margins running from 25% to almost 50%… despite the slow recovery from the recession, there is little financial reason to think differently,” added Collins, who, like me, is a fellow at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. The majority of stations aren’t staffed to cover their hyperlocal communities — and doing so would require investment. But the staffing problem isn’t just about content. Collins rightly pointed out that most TV station sales reps couldn’t imagine living off the commission garnered from selling to hyperlocal advertisers. That’s where companies like Datasphere, which provides hyperlocal technology and sales solutions to local TV stations, have found success. TV stations have been at a disadvantage when it comes to selling at the hyperlocal level — especially when compared to their newspaper counterparts, according to Gary Cowan, SVP of product and marketing at Datasphere. “[Newspapers] have a history that includes classifieds and going deeper into the community in terms of the advertiser they sell,” he said. “For TV stations, their focus is on medium to large regional companies.” That shift from large regional advertisers to smaller retail outlets can be a difficult one, said Cowan: “To go in the direction that is more hyperlocal means smaller accounts and more operations and overhead. That may not be the right call for them to do individually.” Another disadvantage is the amount of content, Cowan said: “If I compare TV stations to newspapers… one of the differences is the level of news gathering resources in terms of reporting. The volume of content tends to be greater. In many cases they have a bigger starting point.” The TV stations that have successfully deployed Datasphere have tended to hire a couple of people to staff their hyperlocal section and churn out a couple of stories a day for each neighborhood. Cowan said the crucial part is to provide another layer of content on top of their existing TV content: “As a local news organization, the more you can develop your distinguishing traits, build on your core strengths, which should be about local news… That will serve you well over the long term.” What I find interesting is that DataSphere isn’t looking to help TV stations to provide the in-depth types of content offered by independent hyperlocals but instead to “provide a broader set of experiences.” This is a problem for me. Cowan is arguing that it’s fine for a TV stations to have small amounts of content in every neighborhood, rather than to own a couple of neighborhoods or even all their neighborhoods. It’s hard for me to make the leap that somehow not being No. 1 in your area for hyperlocal coverage is okay. I don’t think that people in one neighborhood care that the TV station also covers a different neighborhood. They want their neighborhood news. If a TV station can’t provide that, then why even try? Cowan had a different take: “The market is more complex than such a black-and-white analysis would suggest. In particular we don’t believe that there is a one size fits all for all types of neighborhoods.” For example he said it’s acceptable that WestSeattleBlog might do a better job covering west Seattle than the local TV station site: “It is inherently difficult for a TV station to compete in specific neighborhoods where you have a player like that, to be able to deliver a depth of coverage in a particular neighborhood to that extent.” Rather, he said, in those neighborhoods “we see some of our strongest site performance.” In the less-established neighborhoods with little or no competition, he said, “there is a baseline of content that is necessary to make a site useful and a destination for neighborhood news, but often real value and utility can be created at [a] threshold [that] is significantly lower than [what] might be justified in a more active neighborhood scenario.” If TV stations are going to get into the hyperlocal space, they should get in it to own it. Residents of a neighborhood can easily be turned off by a TV station’s brand if it’s marketed as a neighborhood destination but doesn’t have a sufficient amount of online content. And I do enjoy the world that Collins lays out as a possible future — a future where the broadcast focuses on the regional news but pushes hyperlocal content to the website. “I’ll get my hometown and town news from the website, and I’ll get my state and regional news from the nightly broadcast,” Collins said. These places will be lucky to have a good broadcast or a good hyperlocal site five to 10 years from now. Both estimates may be a stretch.

Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) are embarking on a major new project to help communities in some of the most vulnerable areas of Africa adapt to the future impacts of climate change. International Development UEA has been awarded a £1.1 million grant to undertake collaborative work on vulnerability and adaptation in some of the driest zones of East Africa, as part of a new Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR) research group. Led by the University of Cape Town in South Africa, ASSAR's five-year project starts from the premise that, by the middle of this century, the impacts of climate change may require radical changes in how people utilize land and resources. It will look at how climatic, biophysical, social, political, and economic factors interact in semi-arid regions and produce scenarios and practical advice for communities and decision-makers, so that they can develop strategies to help them adapt to changes in the climate, such as more frequent and prolonged droughts which threaten livestock and agriculture. The grant has been awarded by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) and Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) under the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) program, a seven-year, $70 million research initiative aimed at understanding climate change and adaptation in vulnerable regions. It will produce new evidence to help communities and countries prepare for likely changes in areas where demographic trends and climatic extremes put large numbers of people and their livelihoods at risk. The program will see four multi-partner initiatives conduct research in three types of 'hot spots' - semi-arid regions in Africa and South and Central Asia, deltas in Africa and South Asia, and Himalayan river basins. The ASSAR initiative will focus on 10 countries across Africa and South Asia, with UEA primarily responsible for research in East Africa. Working with partners in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, one of the key areas of interest will be the interaction between water stress, or scarcity, and livestock raising and agriculture in the region. By mid-century, average summer temperatures across large areas of Africa could exceed the hottest on record, leading to water shortages and crop failures, while the length of the growing season may decline by up to 20 per cent, with poor farmers and pastoralists in semi-arid regions most at risk. Led by Dr Roger Few, the UEA team includes researchers from the School of International Development with expertise in water management and governance, poverty and well-being, ecology and conservation, and gender analysis. Dr Few said: "The impacts of climate change are likely to bring dramatic changes for populations and livelihoods in these at-risk regions. The scale and ambition of this project provides us with a wonderful opportunity to bring together a range of disciplines and expertise to focus critical research on the needs, capacities, barriers and opportunities for adaptation for people living in semi-arid environments. "One feature of the UEA team is that it includes some researchers who have not previously engaged strongly on climate change themes, and so can bring a fresh perspective to the key questions and complexities that surround issues of adaptive response by poor and/or marginalized population groups." Also working with the University of Cape Town and UEA on ASSAR are Start International (United States), Oxfam Great Britain (United Kingdom) and the International Institute for Human Settlements (India). CARIAA's research agenda addresses gaps and priorities highlighted in the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, which projects that the world's dry regions will become even drier due to global warming, putting further stress on those who depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, such as in farming, fishing, or forestry. Further information about the CARIAA program is available at.

A BELL dating back to 1875 has been found on a shipwreck off the coast of Kirkcaldy. Scuba diving instructor Mark Blyth uncovered the ship’s bell while out on a training dive in the Forth last week. And it’s discovery comes after years lying at the bottom of the estuary, where local divers have thought the wreck was a different ship. Mark, who runs The Dive Bunker in Burntisland, explained: ’s uncovered a lot of wreckage that was hidden before. “I was on a training dive with a client on Sunday when we saw what looked like a pipe. “I thought it looked quite interesting. Excavation “I went back on the Monday and had a closer look and with a bit of light excavation I was able to bring it out. “The top of the bell is missing because it’s been exposed to the weather, but the rest of the bell right up to the top edge is there. “The bell of a wreck is important as it dictates the ship. “This one has Vulcan 1875 engraved on it. “I’ve dived it personally about 1400 to 1500 times, and probably had between eight and 10 divers out at a time. Changing “There’s been a lot of divers down there over the years, but this bell has gone unnoticed until now. That’s the beauty about the sea bed constantly changing. “We’ve thought for so long that we were diving the Adam Smith wreck, but it seems we were wrong.” For Mark, this is not his first find off the Fife coast. Back in 2007, along with diving student, Emma Smith, Mark discovered the bell of the Royal Archer embedded in the bed of the Forth. The ship was sunk after being bombed in an air raid on June 3, 1941. Almost Done! By registering you are agreeing to the Terms and Conditions of the website.

Privacy and Cookies The first quantitative data on the suspected link between how far US pilots commute to work versus their level of fatigue when they get there may come from a comprehensive new flightcrew monitoring programme in Europe. UK-based low-fare carrier EasyJet, under an agreement with NASA, is soon to start the first of three studies aimed at using demographic data, questionnaires, real-time measurements and flight data monitoring to develop objective measures of physiological and cognitive effects of fatigue, including the impact of commuting. The NASA work is not related to efforts by the US National Transportation Safety Board, which as part of its investigation into the Colgan Air Bombardier Q400 crash near Buffalo, New York in February 2009, has asked the US Federal Aviation Administration to require airlines to "address fatigue risks associated with commuting, including identifying pilots who commute, establishing policy and guidance to mitigate fatigue risks for commuting pilots". The NTSB found that 70% of Colgan pilots commuted to the airline's Newark Liberty International airport base, and 20% were commuting 1,600km (1,000 miles) or more. The FAA has not favoured pilot commuting limit rules, partly because of the economic impact it might have on pilots who would be required to relocate. But the agency is expected to release this year a proposed rulemaking on fatigue management that would require measures, including scheduling, to reduce fatigue. If fatigue markers can be defined in data, NASA or airlines will in theory be able to identify accident precursors through collected flight data monitoring databases, including flight operations quality assurance (FOQA) archives, as well as textual information from aviation safety action programmes. The latter two are elements in the FAA's broader aviation safety information analysis and sharing system (ASIAS), an aggregation of safety databases meant to help it intervene in safety issues in advance of incidents or accidents. "Our algorithms sort through massive amounts of data and find samples of time where something unusual is happening," says Ashok Srivastava, principal investigator for NASA's Integrated Vehicle Health Management research project. "We do this by comparing data that is nominal or typically observed with data that is atypical." In the fatigue study, 20 pilot and flight attendant volunteers in three groups will fill out surveys and wear specialised equipment that continuously monitors as many as 20 physical and cognitive parameters around the clock starting several days before to several days after their six-day duty cycle. EasyJet has agreed to "allow us to link demographic information on the flightcrews, since [commuting distance] is linked to fatigue", says Irving Statler, a human factors expert at NASA's Ames Research Centre. Statler says the demographic information - a survey that includes a crew's commuter starting point - will be de-identified. NASA will have access to daily transfers of the data on which it will test various algorithms designed to link the fatigue measurements to flight data monitoring. "We're responsible for discovering the anomalies in their data," says Statler. Shortly to go on tap at EasyJet will be a cabin crew. The first of two flightcrew studies is set for around September. Airbus, EasyJet, French aerospace laboratory Onera and NASA previously worked together on a study that analysed the benefits of using earlier NASA algorithms that search for atypical data as compared with an industry- standard FOQA analysis program. Researchers compared the analysis packages on Airbus A319 flight monitoring data from 79 flights over a two-month period between the same city pair. While the Aircraft Flight Analysis and Safety Explorer (AirFASE) programme flags data anomalies based on predefined limits set by standard operating procedures, the NASA program, called the Morning Report, searched for differences from activity considered to be "normal", in this case, 210 flights in the four months preceding the comparison flights. The researchers concluded that both programs are valuable, with Morning Report filling the gap "between tracking known events and discovering unexpected events with a statistical process that requires no a priori information about safety hazards", says NASA. Statler says it will be vital to develop a variety of data mining tools for ASIAS in advance of the FAA's next generation air transport system. "It will give the industry the capability for proactive management of risk, from a national perspective," he says. "All that data needs to be mined, with information extracted and fused to get the right perspective. It

Citizen Health & Safety No Movement on Coal Ash Protections Despite Mounting Evidence of Danger 10/23/2012 This December will mark the four-year anniversary of a massive spill in Tennessee that sparked new calls for the regulation of coal ash, a toxic waste produced when coal is burned. Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed options for regulating coal ash in 2010, little progress has been made toward issuing comprehensive national standards. Environmental groups have asked the courts to force the agency to act while bills attempting to thwart new standards have been moving through Congress. This impasse may continue until after the upcoming elections. The failure to provide adequate standards for coal ash is increasingly alarming as new studies continue to highlight its dangers. In December 2008, an embankment holding wet coal ash ruptured at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston plant, releasing 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash sludge that buried a community and severely contaminated a nearby river. Coal ash can contain arsenic, lead, chromium, and other heavy metals, all of which poison humans. In 2010, EPA proposed two options for regulating coal ash under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA): - The first option would designate coal ash as a hazardous waste, requiring special handling, transportation, and disposal, and would closely monitor any potential reuse. This option would be far more protective of Americans' health and the environment. - The second option would regulate coal ash in the same way less toxic wastes like household garbage are regulated. This option would limit EPA's responsibility and authority over coal ash management. Two years later, no final rules have been issued, and the U.S. House of Representatives has passed bills which, if enacted into law, would limit federal oversight over coal ash. Last week, The Washington Post published an article noting that election-year politics are likely delaying a decision on coal ash protections. The outcome of the November elections could determine the future of coal ash regulation: House-passed legislation to weaken federal authority over coal ash has so far been blocked by the Democratically controlled Senate. In the absence of regulatory action by the executive branch, the future of coal ash protections will depend on whether Congress enacts legislation to prevent certain new rules or the courts mandate that new rules be established by the EPA. A new peer-reviewed study led by Duke University provides fodder for advocates' demands for action. It found high levels of arsenic and other toxins in coal ash waste flowing into lakes and rivers in North Carolina. According to one researcher, some of the highest levels of contamination were found in coal ash waste streams that flow into a lake that is a primary drinking water source for Charlotte. Samples collected from that lake during the summers of 2010 and 2011 contained arsenic at levels about 25 times higher than the current EPA standards for drinking water. The researcher also noted that "there are no systematic monitoring or regulations to reduce water-quality impacts from coal ash ponds because coal ash is not considered as hazardous waste." These findings support those of a report by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice, which uncovered dozens of cases in which ponds of toxic coal combustion waste leaked into nearby wetlands, streams, and groundwater supplies. The stakes are high for environmentalists and residents living near coal ash production and storage operations. The U.S. generates roughly 140 million tons of coal ash every year, about half of which is kept in storage ponds and landfills. Many of these storage locations have received "high hazard potential" ratings, yet there is still no comprehensive federal policy for controlling the storage and disposal of coal ash waste. The evidence of the health and safety risks posed by coal ash helps make the case for more stringent standards. Even those who disagree on the specifics of new rules acknowledge that inaction is problematic and that standards are needed. The lack of uniform standards only adds to regulatory uncertainty for businesses that store or recycle coal ash, and nonexistent or weak standards do nothing to protect the public. Image in teaser by flickr user Rhiannon Fionn, used under a Creative Commons license

Friday, October 19, 2012 A $350,000 Callaway Community Hospital renovation project will improve the hospital’s emergency services and shift the main entrance from the north side to the south side of the hospital. Allen AufderHeide, hospital chief executive officer, said the hospital plans to complete the renovation by Jan. 31, 2013. He emphasized emergency services will continue during the renovation and visitors should use care and avoid construction zone areas. AufderHeide said the purpose of the renovation is to provide more efficiencies in the emergency services department and to provide added convenience for patients and visitors to the hospital. When the renovation is completed next year, the hospital’s primary entrance will be moved from the north side to the current emergency services area on the south side of the hospital. “But that move of the main entrance will not occur until the renovation is completed,” AufderHeide said. “All of our patients — whether they be for emergency services, outpatients, or visitors — will enter the hospital on the current emergency services side of the complex instead of the current front entrance.” A new 2,500-square-foot structure will be added on the south side of the hospital to house a new emergency services waiting area, a new out-patient waiting area, a patient registration area, and a gift shop. “We also will make improvements to the existing emergency services area. Curtains separating various areas will be replaced with walls and doors to provide more privacy,” AufderHeide said. The $350,000 to finance the improvements came from the same Rural Development Loan from the United States Department of Agriculture used to finance the hospital’s new Kingdom Senior Solutions, a new 19-bed inpatient program for elderly patients with behavioral problems relating to the normal aging process. More like this story Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content. Please review our Policies and Procedures before registering or commenting

The U.S. Army would shed at least 100,000 soldiers -- in addition to the cuts already scheduled from the post-war drawdown -- if the full, 10-year sequestration program goes into effect, according to service officials. Army Secretary John McHugh and Chief of Staff Ray Odierno told the Senate Armed Forces Committee on Tuesday that across-the-board cuts would severely and negatively impact readiness and modernization. “One-hundred thousand is the minimum,” Odierno told the Senate panel. “If it goes to full sequestration, it will probably be more than that.” In prepared testimony, McHugh and Odierno said that coupled with previously planned cuts from winding down the war in Afghanistan, the Army could lose as many as 200,000 soldiers over the next 10 years. The officials said the severe budget cuts would also curb efforts to reduce sexual harassment and assault in the Army. The service is planning to hire 829 military and civilian sexual assault response coordinators, but sequestration will endanger progress in a number of ways, from “slowing hiring actions to delaying lab results, which hinders our ability to provide resolution for victims,” said McHugh and Odierno. Odierno also expressed concern over Army reservists returning home from deployment. Unemployment among that population is roughly 24 percent, more than three times that of the population at large. Odierno said over-deployment has led to reservists losing or quitting their jobs at an alarmingly high rate. “That’s what I worry about when we go into the future,” Odierno said. "We’ve got to get their deployments down because they are citizen soldiers,” he said. “We want to have that right balance so that they can maintain their job.” Odierno added the Army can use additional resources provided to it from the 2011 Veterans Opportunity to Work Act to help reservists find jobs, after the number of deployments has been.

Last December’s release of the quadrennial “Plum Book,” the congressionally compiled list of top government jobs and supporting positions, contained a curiosity. In the section on the Defense Department’s top management, among the many jobs located in Arlington, Va., home to the Pentagon, was a notation for Shay Assad, director of Defense pricing policy. His location? Boston. Assad, who has worked for Defense since 2004, was asked by That would appear to make up for the costs of commuting to Washington, where Assad, who is career SES, is expected to spend about 25 percent of his time, according to a Pentagon spokeswoman. Assad works directly for Frank Kendall, the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics on major programs, an arrangement made to “ensure that the entire organization and industry understood the importance of contract pricing,” the spokeswoman said. One of his chief responsibilities is to assist and advise DCMA Director Charlie Williams Jr. in the ”implementation of a departmentwide centralized DCMA pricing capability.” Over time, the spokeswoman said, Assad “anticipates he will spend more time directly working with his counterparts in the field in the implementation of Better Buying Power Initiatives.” In a previous life, Assad spent 22 years as an executive with Raytheon Co., based outside Boston in Waltham, and is a red-hot Red Sox fan. ”Of course,” he said, “I was happy to take.

After tragically delivering a stillborn baby, Yvonne was unsure whether she would ever be able to have a healthy baby. She is a seamstress in Ahentia, a small village in central Ghana, where access to basic healthcare is limited. Many local women rely on myths and customs to understand pregnancy, leading them to false and sometimes harmful conclusions. During her unsuccessful pregnancy, Yvonne did not visit the local health clinic for prenatal checkups. Instead, she used herbal medicines recommended to her by others in her community. When she was pregnant again, a community health nurse helped her sign up for Grameen Foundation’s Mobile Midwife service (part of our mobile health program called MOTECH). Yvonne received weekly messages with advice timed to her stage in pregnancy. She also received reminders about her upcoming appointments at the local clinic, as well as tips on how to eat healthfully. Her son Daniel was born healthy, and today Yvonne is a proud mother with new hope. “Mobile Midwife really helped me through my pregnancy and after giving birth,” says Yvonne. “I continue to get helpful information on how to take care of my child. I’ve learned that I should exclusively breastfeed for the first six months.” When we asked Yvonne if she would like to say anything to Grameen Foundation donors who have helped support Mobile Midwife, she said, “May God bless those who donated to help Mobile Midwife. I’m so happy now to have a baby sitting on my lap.”

Australia’s two Formula One World Champions, Sir Jack Brabham and Alan Jones, were honoured in a special ceremony before Sunday’s 2013 Rolex Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix. Bronze busts of Sir Jack, World Champion in 1959, 1960 and 1966, and Alan, Australia’s second World Champion in 1980, were unveiled by the Premier of Victoria, Dr. Denis Napthine, at the circuit which staged its first Australian Grand Prix six decades ago. Dr. Napthine said it was an honour and a privilege to be with Sir Jack, who was a boyhood hero of his, and Alan Jones, both men having strong links to that original race. Sir Jack took part in practice but was unable to race after mechanical failure; Alan’s father Stan started from the front row, led the race and set fastest lap before retiring shortly before the finish. “We are recognising today two absolute icons of Australian motor racing and Australian motor racing,” said Dr. Napthine. “It is a fitting tribute that they are being presented today with these sculptures.” The busts, the work of Melbourne artist Barbara McLean, were received with both pride and humility by the two World Champions. “Fantastic!” beamed Sir Jack. “A great honour – it certainly looks the goods, and I am very proud to be here to see it.” Another triple World Champion was among the onlookers. “Jack was a great driver,” said Sir Jackie Stewart, who won the title in 1969, 1971 and 1973. “He was so cool, calm and collected. But he was a difficult man to pass! Every time you saw a good piece of road open up, Jack would close it. He was probably the best defender of his position I can ever remember. “But there’s nobody who has done what Jack Brabham’s done: not only win the World Championship but do it in a car of his own build.” Alan Jones, like Sir Jack, enjoyed a reputation as one of the sport’s toughest competitors but he was close to tears on seeing the sculpture. “Unbelievable,” he said. “Totally out of left field – it’s a huge honour. My father would be absolutely rapt. He was the guiding light for me: I grew up in that environment and since the time I was knee-high to a grasshopper I knew I was going to be a racing driver. Looking at the sculpture he said: “I’m just sorry I don’t look like this now!”

Wolf Organization sells retail business The housing downturn claimed another pro dealer last month when The Lumber Yard, an LBM chain headquartered in York, Pa., sold a pair of locations to a competitor and entered into negotiations with separate buyers for its remaining two units. Wolf Organization, parent company of The Lumber Yard, said it wanted to concentrate on its more successful distribution business, which handles kitchen cabinets, siding, composite decking and other building materials. John H. Myers & Son, a five-unit pro dealer in South Central Pennsylvania, has acquired the assets of The Lumber Yard locations in York, Pa., and Hagerstown, Md. The Lumber Yard’s last two locations, in Downingtown and Whitehall, Pa., will also be sold to existing lumberyards, according to Jim Groff, the senior vp-marketing for Wolf Organization. “We’re looking to have the exact same disposition, but with two other regional independents,” Groff told Home Channel News. “We’re very, very close on one [deal].” John H. Myers, also headquartered in York, will transfer equipment and inventory from the two purchased yards to its own locations. In addition to the York facility, the 92-year-old company operates branches in Chambersburg, Dallastown, Hanover and Camp Hill, Pa. All 73 employees of the two Lumber Yard locations will be offered job s at John H. Myers, which listed $60 million in sales for 2007 on the HCN Pro Dealer Top 350 Scoreboard. “We’re hiring everybody upfront,” said company president Bob Myers III in an interview with Home Channel News. “They’ve got some long-time, knowledgeable people.” A fourth generation owner, Myers has already witnessed an 84 Lumber and Stock Building Supply close in his market since the housing downturn. By purchasing the two Lumber Yard locations, Myers hopes “to keep a good chunk of their business without a lot of infrastructure costs,” he said. The Lumber Yard, which started 2007 with 18 units in five Mid-Atlantic states, went through a major restructuring late last year. Half of the chain’s locations were closed, and five regional “super yards” were created with additional inventory, equipment and service levels. Four smaller lumberyards were also kept open. But as the housing market continued to tank, nine locations dwindled down to four. But The Lumber Yard continued to serve builders and remodelers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, using a warehouse and delivery system derived from its sister organization, Wolf Distributing. “Our footprint has not gotten any smaller,” Len Kopec, The Lumber Yard’s president and CEO, told Home Channel News in September. Housing starts had slowed to a crawl by then, however. “Nothing is coming out of the ground that isn’t sold first,” said Kopec, who retired last month after 40 years in the LBM business. By contrast, Wolf Distributing has gained market share over the past two years, largely through new product lines and distribution agreements. Also headquartered in York, the $223.7 million wholesaler distributes kitchen cabinets, countertops and bath vanities from Maine to the Carolinas. A second distribution center in Allentown, Pa., serves Pennsylvania; Maryland; Delaware; Virginia; Washington, D.C.; New Jersey; and parts of New York with composite decking, siding, and trim, house wrap and a few other specialty building materials. Groff attributed the company’s growth to the additions of AZEK trim molding and James Hardie fiber cement siding in 2008. The distributor also finished implementing an SAP system throughout the entire organization, greatly expanding product availability to Wolf’s customers , which include big boxes, independent lumberyards, plumbing supply houses and kitchen and bath retailers. Wolf now offers overnight or next truck delivery on most of its inventory, Groff said.

Museum workshop puts parents, kids on same page It was drizzling and overcast outside, but was bright and busy on Saturday morning inside a Museum of Life and Science room where children, their parents, friends and relatives were busy assembling small robots from kits. This was the second of three sessions held as part of the museum’s new Tinker Tech Family Workshop series that aim to bring science, technology, engineering and math to children outside of school. “You rock,” Durham resident Tamara Atkinson said, speaking to her 9-year-old son Bradley at the workshop on Saturday. She gave him a high-five after she saw the Lego monkey he’d built was moving its arms as if it were banging on a drum. The 17 children and adults worked in groups to build monkeys, airplanes and other creatures using Lego WeDo Construction Sets. The models plugged into computers and had moveable parts thanks to motors and sensors. After building with the Lego kits, they moved on to assemble small vehicles using ArTec kits. The vehicles could move around lines using sensors. Atkinson was there with Bradley as well as with her 11-year-old Joshua Atkinson, who was building a Lego model airplane with spinning propellers. After assembling the models, the children used the program to make sounds for the models. “I’m learning during the process,” Atkinson said, as her son Joshua worked on the Lego model. She also said she thought Saturday’s workshop helped build her children’s imagination and problem-solving skills. Brenda Felder was at the workshop with her 11-year-old son Henry Felder and her father, Carl Foster. She said her son Henry and Joshua are friends at school. As she worked with Bradley on a Lego model and while her father was working with Henry, she said she thought the workshop rocks. “I mean it’s the best because they’re not in front of a video,” she said, adding that it also brought three generations of her family together. Foster also said he was learning something at the workshop. “He understands it a lot better than I do,” he said of his grandson. Anna Engelke, education specialist for the Museum of Life and Science, said Saturday’s workshop was the most popular so far in the series. She said the series builds on her own interests in robots and science. “Who doesn’t like Legos?” she added.

Amy Gottfried is associate professor of English at Hood, where she teaches creative writing and American literature. She directs the master of arts program in humanities and also advises the student-run literary magazine, Wisteria. Her literary publications include short stories in magazines such as Adirondack Review and Quarry West. In addition, she has a story forthcoming in Glimmer Train, which awarded her second-prize in its Family Matters Short Fiction contest and honorable mention in its Short Short Fiction contest. Elizabeth Knapp is assistant professor of English at Hood College. She is the author of "The Spite House" (forthcoming from C&R Press), winner of the 2010 De Novo Poetry Prize. The recipient of the 2007 Discovered Voices Award from Iron Horse Literary Review, she has published poems in Best New Poets 2007, The Massachusetts Review, Mid-American Review, Barrow Street and many other journals. She holds an master of fine arts degree from the Bennington Writing Seminars and a doctoral degree from Western Michigan University. Karen Salyer McElmurray is associate professor in creative writing at Georgia College and State University. Her, and "Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven," winner of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing. McElmurray is creative nonfiction editor for Arts and Letters: A Journal of Contemporary Culture. Scot Slaby earned a master's degree from The Johns Hopkins University. A recipient of a scholarship to the West Chester Conference on Form and Narrative and a Fellow at the 2009 Johns Hopkins Conference on Craft, Slaby has poems forthcoming or published in Verse Wisconsin, Unsplendid, Bumbershoot and Out of the Catskills and Just Beyond, an anthology from Word Thursdays/Bright Hill Press. An International Baccalaureate-trained teacher at Urbana High School, Slaby co-founded the Urbana Writing Center, the school system’s first peer tutor-run writing center. Elly Williams is the author of the novel "This Never Happened" (Random House, 1998), published in the U.K .as a Penguin Classic under the title "Crazy Think" (Michael Joseph, 1997, 1998). Included in her publications are selections in The Missouri Review and Five Points. She earned a master's degree in writing from The Johns Hopkins University and a doctorate in English from Ohio University. She has received fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, among other honors and awards. Director and founder of the Hood College Young Writers’ Conference, Williams teaches at Hood College

General Counsel may find they are working at a company with co-CEOs, and there is reason to believe the management set-up will work, especially if it was properly implemented. “It’s not a very common structure,” Joseph Porac, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said in an interview with InsideCounsel, about co-CEOs. “It can work.” When it is effective, the two CEOs may have complementary skills, there is a good relationship between them, and it can add value to the company, Porac said. There should be a culture of cooperation for the system to work effectively, he added. Often, when the co-CEO system is used, there are good reasons for it to be employed. One time it may make sense is in a regulated industry, such as with utilities or financial services, where one CEO may have extensive legal or regulatory background. That CEO could handle regulatory matters. It may also make sense if a company is coming through a scandal or has been acquired by another firm, and the co-CEO approach will be used for a relatively short period of time, such as a year. It sometimes also is used when two relatives, such as a parent and a son/daughter are co-CEOs in companies. It helps to prepare the younger relative to take over the company. And it may be used in order to keep co-founders equal as a company evolves. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ FURTHER READING: Board members, CEOs concerned about damage to company’s reputation during crisis Number of women CEOs remains low, but long-term outlook will improve Hogan Lovells appoints first sole CEO since firm merger ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A co-CEO system may work better for top management, such as general counsel, if they report to just one of the CEOs, though they could also report to both. “It can work if the circumstances are right,” Porac said. One example in the financial sector of co-CEOs was seen at Citigroup, where Sanford Weill and John Reed ran the giant company together, and Reed left after two years. But Porac points out that one of the classic principles of management is the theory of unity of command, which calls for everyone to report to only one boss. “There’s a reason why organizations are usually organized hierarchically,” Porac said. In fact, there are some potential negatives when co-CEOs are in charge. According to European CEO, “Egos inevitably become inflated when moved into the echelons of upper management – and even when two seasoned and mature executives think they’ve evenly distributed the responsibilities of their shared job, it’s exceedingly difficult for companies to adapt to a divided command structure.” There is another problem related to reporting because board members are not sure to whom they should be reporting. “Fundamentally, two heads never work over the long-term—just as there are no ‘mergers of equals,’ because in the end the products, services, culture and marketing approach of one company … in the end prevail,” Helmuth Uder, head of board and executive remuneration consulting at Towers Watson, told The Wall Street Journal. But when it works, there can be lucrative benefits. One instance is at the Chipotle restaurant chain. “By the end of Chipotle’s first year under dual-leadership, earnings had jumped by an incredible 67 percent – and things haven’t slowed down since,” European CEO said. To make it work, European CEO recommends, “Communication is key, and clear divisions must be made regarding each person’s workload and responsibilities. Even then, the system is difficult to maintain. After all, shared responsibilities mean shared accountability, therefore, the provision of multiple CEOs can make it difficult for board members to know exactly who should be held liable for mistakes.” Looking at the big picture, as well, Stephen Ferris, director of the Financial Research Institute at the University of Missouri, said between 1998 and 2008, 111 publicly traded companies had co-CEOs. These included such well-known firms as Bed, Bath & Beyond and American Eagle Outfitters. Other companies, too, may opt for the co-CEO model in the future. Join the Conversation

It’s been a long, winding road that has taken 39-year-old Israeli extreme athlete Dror Cohen from combat planes to a wheelchair to the 2008 Paris-Dakar Rally, the world’s toughest off-road race. By his own admission, Cohen has been a daredevil since he was a boy. “Whenever we had trips, I never went on the track, I always went off-road,” he told ISRAEL21c. As he grew up, Cohen continued to seek out physical challenges, becoming an army combat pilot (F-16s and Skyhawks) and flight instructor. But then tragedy struck: an army car accident in 1992 left Cohen, then 24, paralyzed from the waist down. It seemed that his active days were over, and he would be relegated to a life of immobility. At first, Cohen went into a dismal depression over his condition. Slowly, however, he began to exercise again, participating in the basic sporting activities that were available for the disabled. And then, while abroad, Cohen had the opportunity to try out skis and water-skis adapted for the disabled, and was thrilled to return to the adrenaline-producing sports that he loved. “I need adrenaline; if I don’t have it sucked into my blood, I lose interest very quickly,” he explained. But when he returned home to Israel, he found that extreme sports facilities for the disabled were not available. “You can go to these ghettos where all the disabled go to. There’s a nice basketball place, swimming pool – that’s it!” recalled Cohen. “I brought water-skis from London and learned everything there is. I came back and I wanted to water-ski, but I was told ‘Go, go we don’t have anything for you.’ Or when I wanted to sail, or scuba-dive; I was told ‘we don’t deal with disabled.’ We just saw that there is no real answer for disabled people who want to do extreme sports.” Owing to his nature of action, the frustrated Cohen helped found the Challenge Association in 1995. The organization’s goal is to make extreme sports available for the disabled, including the deaf, blind, people with cerebral palsy. According to Cohen, the association offers “everything in the air, sea and land that you can think of.” And as a result, thousands of registered disabled Israelis are now enjoying activities that were previously unavailable to them – like sailing. “They put them in the boat with special trainers, a lot of volunteers. Who would previously give a blind person a chance to go sailing in a boat?” he asks. “Then Challenge comes in and proposes: come and sail.” Yet for Cohen himself, participating in extreme sports wasn’t enough: he needed to compete. He trained with a sailing team, placing 8th in the 2000 Paralympics, and went on to take the gold in Athens, in 2004. But even that wasn’t enough, and today Cohen is gearing up to take on the infamous Paris-Dakar race. “The race is the hardest off-road race in the world: almost three weeks, 10,000 km of racing. We start in Lisbon in Portugal, cross to Africa, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, and each day drive between 600 to 800 kilometers,” he said. Two contestants died in the 2007 event in January, which also requires scaling Saharan sand dunes 300 feet high. But Cohen is not deterred. “For me it was a dream from when I was a child. I always loved motor sports and nature. I just love doing it.” He attempted the Paris-Dakar race in 2002, but had to drop out after the 11th day, when his engine gears burned up. Now he is busy training, and raising money to represent Israel this coming January. Sponsored in part by UMI General Motors, who have also provided his souped-up Chevrolet Silverado 2008, Cohen still needs to raise $300,000 in order to compete. An entrepreneur in addition to an extreme athlete, Cohen launched a website where people can buy a square on the hood of his car, and can post photos and messages which will be part of the desert race. Even when not driving, it’s a challenge just to survive the race, explained Cohen. Between stretches of driving, participants must camp out in the Sahara desert, which is difficult enough for an able-bodied person, but poses an added obstacle for him. “It’s hard on a wheelchair, it doesn’t really go on the sand,” he said. But, he adds, his motivation derives from the push he may give to other disabled people. “The fact that someone in a wheelchair goes and races able-bodied people in the hardest off-road rally in the world, sleeping in tents in the Sahara, gives motivation to a lot of people to move themselves up. If I, a person in a wheelchair, goes and fights the desert, maybe you can do something for your community, your family.” Cohen is not interested in special dispensation for his disabilities. “I compete with the regular people,” he says proudly. “I race them, and I win. Whoever is the best and the fastest wins.” An additional motivation for Cohen is representing Israel abroad. “I’m proud of it, we’re going to be the only Israeli team this year. It’s nice to be Israeli in a Muslim country like Mauritania, and be proud of it. And they give you respect.” Cohen admits that his family and friends worry about his daredevil lifestyle, but says that they’ve reached an understanding. “My mother learned: if you can’t beat them, join them,” he grins. “They know that’s what makes me happy. I’m privileged to understand what makes me happy, and that’s how I live. I love racing. I love winning. I don’t know what defeat is.” Cohen spread messages like that during last summer’s Second Lebanon War, talking with injured soldiers in rehab, and their families. “People die, and they’re finished. If you’re here, I say, come on, move yourself. Life is too short and too cruel sometimes, if you don’t take advantage of things you understand you have. Dror means ‘sparrow.’ So I’m a free sparrow. I hope forever I’ll be a free sparrow.”

Bond Issue Would Pay for School Roofs, Homer High Field When Kenai Peninsula Borough voters head to the polls October 1st, they will see a ballot question calling for a $22 million-dollar bond issue. The money would be used to build new roofs at several borough schools, as well as a new football field at Homer High School. Assembly member Mako Haggerty of Homer was the one who introduced the ordinance Tuesday night. "It's .... to do some much-needed work here in the borough," he said. At its last meeting July 1st, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School Board also recommended the bond issue. Assuming a 70-percent reimbursement rate from the State of Alaska, the total net cost to borough taxpayers would be just over $472,000. The estimated cost of replacing the field at Homer High is just under $2 million dollars. Borough Mayor Mike Navarre reminded assembly members that a turf field has already been installed at Kenai Central High School and one is planned to go in at Soldotna High next year. Both of those projects were paid for using grants from the state legislature. Assembly members approved putting the bond issue on the October ballot by unanimous vote. In 2010, borough voters approved a similar bond issue for roof replacement projects at several schools, including Soldotna High School, Ninilchik School and McNeil Canyon Elementary School. If this latest bond issue is approved by voters in October, new roofs would be built at nine more schools, including Tustumena Elementary School, Soldotna Middle School and Paul Banks Elementary School in Homer.

‘A PLUS’ plan would permit states to opt out of NCLB Other groups wrangle over ways to make law more flexible As Michigan educators testified before Congress this year on ways to improve No Child Left Behind, a Michigan congressman has proposed giving states the right to opt out of the federal act altogether. Never an NCLB supporter, U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra has introduced legislation that he says would return more freedom and flexibility to states in determining how to spend federal funding for education. A Republican, Hoekstra represents Michigan’s 2nd Congressional district, which spans 11 counties along the central Lake Michigan shoreline. As proposed, "Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success," or A PLUS, would allow a state to submit a "declaration of intent" to the U.S. Department of Education under which the state agrees to take full responsibility for the education of its students. The state would continue to receive federal funding, but would not be subject to the requirements of NCLB and instead could spend the money according to its own educational priorities. Accountability wouldn’t suffer, Hoekstra said, because states still would be required to establish their own assessment programs and report their progress. The difference is that local communities and parents would hold the schools accountable, not the federal government, he said. "NCLB clearly has moved a lot of decisions away from the state, local communities and parents," he said. "Parents have come to feel they are irrelevant in the education of their children. The most important ingredient in determining whether a child will learn … has been exorcised out of the process." Hoekstra introduced the bill as reauthorization hearings got under way for No Child Left Behind, first approved in 2001. In addition to Hoekstra, more than 50 other Republican House members are sponsoring the bill, HR 1539. Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate by U.S. Sens. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, and John Cornyn, R-Texas. In contrast, Michigan education officials who have testified at the reauthorization hearings have proposed ways to change the act, not to eliminate it. Those suggestions range from giving schools more credit for student progress over time to allowing states to define "qualified" teachers to giving students more than four years to graduate. Hoekstra said he doesn’t believe NCLB has improved student performance, and that school districts have suffered under the "heavy hand of federal mandates," spending money according to federal priorities, not state initiatives. "I came to the conclusion it wasn’t working. It wasn’t helping our kids get a great education," he said. His opinion didn’t change when the Center on Education Policy released a study in June showing that student achievement in reading and math has increased overall since the start of NCLB. Even the study’s authors noted that the gains could not be attributed directly to NCLB, Hoekstra said. The study said the improvement could also be due to such things as "teaching to the test," more lenient tests, scoring analyses or educational reform that was under way before NCLB. Under Hoekstra’s plan, states could combine varied federal funding streams – such as Title I, intended to improve academic achievement among disadvantaged children, and Title II, for teacher quality programs – into one revenue stream and apply the money to state-set priorities. The only exception would be money funneled to states through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. That money would have to be spent on education for students with disabilities. Asked about exempting those funds from A PLUS, Hoekstra said, "That’s one bridge too far." Hoekstra said he will vote against reauthorization of NCLB, even in an improved format. That puts him at odds with President George Bush and other education officials, who have said they support the goals of the program but that it needs restructuring. Steve Burroughs, president of the United Teachers of Flint, testified before the Education and Labor Subcommittee on behalf of the Michigan Education Association and National Educational Association. He told the Education and Labor Subcommittee in April that the NEA suggests 10 specific changes to NCLB, representing areas of "utmost concern." One is that NCLB use a "growth model" that would give schools credit for student improvement on assessment tests, instead of crediting schools only for student proficiency. Burroughs also said that the NEA believes "adequate yearly progress," the system under which districts must demonstrate progress toward target academic goals or face sanctions, should be based on more than statewide assessment tests. AYP should take into consideration graduation rates, school district assessments, attendance and the number of students who take advanced coursework, he said. Also, schools should give newly arrived English language learners up to three years to master English before being tested in English in core content areas, the NEA suggests. Currently those students have one year. Many NCLB critics have pointed out that a school district’s overall performance can be heavily affected by subgroups within the district, including English-language learners and special needs populations. Kathleen N. Straus, president of the Michigan State Board of Education, testified in June before the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education, speaking on behalf of the State of Michigan as well as the National Association of State Boards of Education. She told legislators that Michigan is meeting the spirit of the law, but "clearly we needed more flexibility to help our good faith efforts in meeting the letter of the law." Like Burroughs, she said states should be allowed to adapt tests for students with limited English language skills and with disabilities; should be allowed to use a growth model to track achievement, and should defer to state procedures to determine qualified teachers, given the challenges of finding teachers in some rural areas or high-need subjects. Also, she said, some students should be allowed more than four years to graduate, including many in alternative education programs. But, she said, "I want to make it abundantly clear that the Michigan State Board of Education … embrace(s) the philosophy and goals of the No Child Left Behind Act." Hoekstra’s colleague, Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, met with educators in the Jackson area in May to promote the A PLUS plan. "I think it attracted some interest," Superintendent John Graves said, but "nobody I’ve talked to gives it any chance" of approval. Graves is superintendent of the Jackson County Intermediate School District, which encompasses 12 conventional public school districts. "We haven’t really resolved what parts of governance of education should be done at the local, state and federal level," Graves said. "Once we’ve had those debates, we’d have better guidance." One complaint he’s heard about NCLB involves the four-year high school graduation requirement. Some students can finish high school in three years, he pointed out, and others need five. "It’s a very strict four years, and I think that’s contrary to what we need to be doing. It’s locking in an old model at a time when education is in the process of redesigning itself." Hoekstra said he believes such things should be up to states to decide. "The bottom line is that we need to ask the question: Who will decide the future of our children’s education? Faceless bureaucrats in Washington, or parents and local school administrators who know our children’s names and needs? My vote is for local control," he said in a press release announcing A PLUS. "My preference, in the long run, is to allow education tax credits," Hoekstra said. Under a tax credit system, individuals or corporations would receive a tax credit for money set aside for public or private education. Hoekstra has the support of Tom Horne, the superintendent of instruction for the Arizona Department of Education, who said in a letter that the goals of A PLUS would be "vastly superior" to those of NCLB. The American Association of Christian Schools and the Home School Legal Defense Association also support the bill.

An hour before the polls closed on Election Day, State Sen. Barry Finegold was handing out coffee to voters in Lawrence to make sure they would not leave due to the long lines. Finegold, an Andover Democrat and Senate chairman of the Joint Committee on Election Laws, said voters waited up to two hours. “I think every presidential year the lines get long, but this was definitely way off the mark,” he said. Finegold said he is open to ideas that will alleviate the long lines and encourage more people to vote – including the possibility of early voting. “If we find that early voting is something that will encourage more people to vote, it’s something I might be willing to support,” he said. Massachusetts voters cast ballots in record numbers in November, with turnout of 73 percent. Brian McNiff, spokesman for Secretary of State William Galvin, said in some cities, including Boston, voters complained about lines of up to an hour. While the high turnout may have been an anomaly, some government reform advocacy groups and legislators say the lines point to systemic problems with Massachusetts’ voting system. They plan to use the coming legislative session to push for election reforms. That could mean major changes like early voting, or simpler fixes such as changing the way cities add voters to the inactive voter list. McNiff said Galvin’s office is also speaking with town and city clerks about administrative ways to alleviate the lines. State Sen. Michael Knapik, a Westfield Republican and member of the Joint Committee on Election Laws, said it will probably take “the better part of next session” to figure out which reforms lawmakers can embrace. “We want to make sure we don’t do anything to jeopardize the security of the election,” Knapik said. “If we work toward enhancing greater participation and keeping votes secure, that’s probably a positive thing.” One area that may be reformed is absentee voting. Currently, Massachusetts residents can vote absentee only if they will be out of town on Election Day; they are incapacitated; or their religious beliefs prohibit voting on a particular day. But clerks do not always question voters, and local officials believe many residents who vote absentee do not meet those criteria. “It’s almost trending toward absentee voting becoming the new early voting in Massachusetts,” said Springfield election commissioner Gladys Oyola. The Springfield city offices originally set up three polling booths for absentee voters, but later added five more. Rachel Cobb, associate professor of government at Suffolk University and a board member of MassVOTE, which supports early voting, said early voting would help voters who have trouble getting to the polls on Election Day. It would also avoid the risks for fraud that come with widespread absentee voting by requiring voters to go to a polling place under the same conditions that exist on Election Day. Currently, 32 states have early voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. “The challenge of absentee voting is that that system encourages people to be dishonest,” Cobb said, pointing to the number of people who use absentee voting as a substitute for early voting. Cobb said she believes there could be momentum for reform this session. “There are enough organizations that have said long lines are a problem, we need to deal with this,” Cobb said. “We want participation. We finally get participation. We’re not ready for participation.” In the last legislative session, several election reform bills were proposed, including allowing early voting, but were not passed. Knapik said he plans to work with the sponsors of those bills and introduce new legislation this session. Knapik supports early voting but said there are other reforms that could also be examined – for example, same day voter registration or changing the mechanics of tallying absentee ballots. Lawmakers will have to deal with the cost and mechanics of any proposal, particularly for early voting. Chicopee City Clerk Keith Rattell said while early voting might help the public, “it would certainly put some stress on local city and town clerks’ offices because we would be having more people than usual coming in and voting early.” Rattell said he would want to know whether clerks would receive additional state funding to pay for additional work and overtime. Town and city clerks say there are several simpler reforms that could potentially make voting more efficient. Currently, election workers have to feed absentee ballots into machines at polling locations on Election Day. Oyola said letting workers tally early ballots as they come in could eliminate Election Day work. Oyola also said she would support Election Day registration. “Statewide, legislators and certain city and town clerks are kicking around ideas to not only make it easier for voters, but easier administratively for offices,” Oyola said. Lawrence city clerk William Maloney said the problem there was that the city census was sent out after the presidential primary. Voters who did not return the census - even if they voted in the primary – got put on the inactive voter list. Of 22,000 Lawrence residents who cast ballots in November, 6,000 were considered “inactive” and had to fill out forms affirming their residency. “That slows things up,” Maloney said. One solution, he said, would be to require cities to mail the census earlier in presidential election years. Bob Cutler, the Foxborough town clerk and third vice president of the New England Association of City and Town Clerks, said Massachusetts clerks want to see an election task force set up “that would deal with legislative matters as a whole rather than piecemeal them.” Cutler said a task force could take a comprehensive look at election laws and examine everything from new technology to voter identification to early voting. Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, which promotes government accountability and citizen involvement, said that on Election Day the group tracked problems with lines and other issues in many of Massachusetts’s major cities, including Boston and some suburbs, Springfield, Worcester and Lawrence. (In Springfield, the group reported that three polling places shut down for some time when they ran out of ballots.) Common Cause supports allowing absentee voting for any reason – as does Galvin. But that requires a constitutional amendment, which must pass through two successive legislatures and a statewide vote. Meanwhile, Common Cause will advocate for early voting, a more accessible database so citizens can find their polling place and changes in the way voters are moved to the inactive list. While some of these initiatives have been proposed previously, Wilmot said, “I think this year is different because of the record turnout uncovering a problem in our election system, in that it’s just too slow to handle the type of turnout we should have, frankly, at every election.” “There’s been a lot of outcry from people who did stand in line for two hours not wanting to do that again and still wanting to have their vote,” Wilmot said. “It’s very obvious that we’re behind the times in our election administration technology.”

2007 Personal News Wolfgang Bangerth and Guido Kanschat together with Ralf Hartmann from the Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology, Braunschweig, Germany were awarded "The 2007 Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software" for their deal. II - a General Purpose Object Oriented Finite Element Library. The award will be presented at the Congress of International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) this July in Zurich, Switzerland. Harold Boas was presented the Lester R. Ford Award at the Summer MathFest in San Jose, Calif. Established in 1964, the awards, consisting of a citation and cash prize, are presented by the Mathematical Association of America for articles of expository excellence published in the /American Mathematical Monthly/. Boas received this prestigious award in recognition for his article, "Reflections on the Arbelos," /American Mathematical Monthly/, vol. 113, no. 3, 2006, pp. 236-249. The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is the world's largest professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Yalchin Efendiev organized 5 mini-sessions (joint with Y. Gorb) at the 44th Annual Technical Meeting Society of Engineering Science, Texas A&M University, October 21-24, 2007. Distinguished Professor Richard Ewing, member of the department since 1992, died Wednesday, December 5, 2007, at age 61 after suffering a heart attack. For the past 15 years, Dr. Ewing has dedicated most of his professional life to the Department, the College, and the University. Through his tireless efforts as Dean and later as Vice President for Research, he oversaw the substantial growth in intellectual talent and research infrastructure here at Texas A&M. He was a working colleague and friend to many of us here in the Department and he will be sorely missed. Ciprian Foias has been promoted to the rank of Distinguished Professor in our department effective September 1, 2007. Dr. Foias has made many fundamental contributions to both operator theory and fluid mechanics. He has authored over 400 peer reviewed articles and 11 graduate-level books. He has also directed over 20 Ph.D. students. His major awards include the Norbert Wiener Prize (1995) and the Bela Szokefalvi-Nagy Memorial Medal (2000). His promotion to Distinguished Professor here at A&M is in recognition of his long and extremely productive career. Distinguished Professor Ciprian Foias will receive the Association of Former Students University Level Distinguished Achievement Award in Research. This is the highest level research award offered by the University. With over 400 publications in refereed journals, Dr. Foias has made fundamental contributions to the fields of operator theory and nonlinear partial differential equations. William Johnson has been awarded the prestigious 2007 Stefan Banach Medal by the Polish Academy of Sciences. Below is the award citation from the Polish Academy Web site: Professor Johnson is one of the most outstanding contemporary mathematicians pursuing studies in the field of functional analysis and its applications. He is an author of over 100 scientific papers. His works have made significant contribution to mathematical sciences pointing to development directions of various branches of linear and non-linear functional analysis such as: the global and local theory of Banach spaces, the theory of Banach structures and symmetric spaces, the theory of linear operators in Banach spaces, the theory of Lipschitz functions. The scope of his scientific activity encompasses also the theory of probability and its links with the theory of Banach spaces. Many of his important mathematical discoveries have been made in cooperation with other scholars. He also inspired publication of many works in the area of mathematics. Prof. Johnson established a leading research center dealing with functional analysis and the theory of probability at Texas A&M University, where he heads a special department. Prof. Johnson has cooperated with Polish mathematicians for over 40 years. Dr. Johnson will travel to Poland this summer to receive his award. Greg Klein, a lecturer in our department, has been selected to receive the 2007 Distinguished Achievement College-Level Awards in Teaching from The Association of Former Students. Matthew Papanikolas research was the subject of part of a semi-annual Séminaire Bourbaki lecture. F. Pellarin, "Aspects de l'indépendance algébrique en caractéristique non nulle [d'aprés Anderson, Brownawell, Denis, Papanikolas, Thakur, Yu, ...]" Paris, France, Séminaire Bourbaki, March 2007. Joseph Pasciak is the recipient of the Computational and Mathematical Methods in Science and Engineering 2007 (CMMSE2007) prize for "Excellence in Research". Frank Sottile was the recipient of the US Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow . (Attended the Japanese-American Frontiers of Science, Kanagawa, Japan, November 29-December 4, 2007.) Jaime Vykukal gave birth to a baby girl (Jillian Marie) on April 12th around 1 in the afternoon. She weighed 9 lbs, 8 oz, mother and daughter are doing fine. Catherine Yan serves on the Editorial Board for Advances in Applied Mathematics, since November 2007. At its March 29, 2007 meeting, the Texas A&M University Board of Regents approved the promotion of Maurice Rojas to Professor and Andrew Comech, Peter Howard, Dmitry Panchenko, and Bojan Popov to Associate Professor with tenure. Grants/Contracts Awarded G. Donald Allen, THECB (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board): "High quality algebra II instruction," $88,197, June 1, 2007 to August 31, 2008. G. Donald Allen, THECB (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board): "Course redesign for math 1324," (PI and Director: G. Donald Allen) $349,827, TAMRF #0701594, July 20, 2007 to August 31, 2009. Wolfgang Bangerth, DoE Grant 00056472: "3-D deep penetration neutron imaging of thick absorbing and diffusive objects using transport theory," (with Jean Ragusa, Department of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University) $283,093, May 1, 2007 to Apri 30, 2010. Wolfgang Bangerth, NSF Grant: "A framework for developing novel detection systems focused on interdicting shielded HEU," (Co-PI; PI: Warren Miller, Texas A&M) $7,496,076, November 1, 2007 to October 31, 2012. Note: Each of the 4 co-PIs leads one sub-project. I lead the "Radiation transport modeling and inversion" subproject that consists, in addition to myself, of Jean-Luc Guermond, Guido Kanschat, Peter Kuchment (Department of Mathematics), Nancy Amato, Lawrence Rauchwerger (Computer Science), Marvin Adams, Jean Ragusa (Nuclear Engineering). Ioan Bejenaru (PI), NSF Grant: "Schrödinger maps and related problems," DMS-0738442, $89,000, July 2007 to July 2010. Sue Geller, PI, NSF Grant: "Undergraduate student travel to conferences," DMS-0714549, $15,038, 2007. Jean-Luc Guermond, PI, Guido Kanschat, Co-PI, and Raytcho Lazarov, Co-PI, NSF Grant: "Discontinuous Galerkin methods for PDEs with heterogeneous coefficients," DMS-0713829, $300,000, August 2007 to August 2010. William Johnson and Gilles Pisier, PIs, NSF Grant: "Geometry of Banach spaces and of operator spaces," DMS-0503688, $882,492, June 1, 2005 to May 31, 2010. William Johnson, PI NSF Grant: "Collaborative research: Embeddings of finite metric spaces - a geometric approach to efficient algorithms," DMS-0501256 (MSPA-MCS), (S. Arora, M. Charikar, and M. Gromov, Principal Investigators) $135,000 for Texas A&M, July 15, 2005 to August 31, 2008. William Johnson, David Larson, Gilles Pisier, and Joel Zinn, PIs, NSF Grant: "Workshop in Analysis and Probability," DMS-0532508 (SM), $307,986 for three years. William Johnson and G. Schechtman, PIs, US-Israel Binational Science Foundation: "Topics in the Geometry of Banach Spaces," BSF-2006027, $148,352 for four year (through the Weizmann Institute of Science). Guido Kanschat , Co-PI and Warren Miller (NEEN), PI NSF-DNDO Grant: A Framework for Developing Novel Detection Systems Focused on Interdicting Shielded HEU, 2007. Peter Kuchment, PI, NSF Grant: "Mathematical methods for novel modalities of medical imaging", DMS-0715090 $55,905, June 1, 2007 to August 31, 2009. Raytcho Lazarov, PI and Joseph Pasciak, Co-PI, LLNL: "Computational issues of neutron transport," $49,800, June 1, 2007 to December 30, 2007. Laura Matusevich, PI, NSF Grant: "Multivariate hypergeometric functions and equations," DMS-0703866, $146,741 (estimated), June 2007 to May 2010. Laura Matusevich, PI, and Frank Sottile, Co-PI, NSF Grang: "Summer School on Applicable Algebraic Geometry: Additional Funding," DMS-0704355, $25,000, Summer 2007. Laura Matusevich, Institute for Mathematics and its Applications: "Funding for IMA Summer School on Applicable Algebraic Geometry," supplied by the IMA, $70,000 (estimated), Summer 2007. Co-Organizers: Frank Sottile, Thorsten Theobald. Guergana Petrova, Co-PI, Bulgarian Science Fund Grant: "Mathematical methods and algorithms for computed tomography," VU-I-303/2007, BG LV 20,000, October 1, 2007 to September 30, 2010. Guergana Petrova, PI, IMA Participating Institutions Conference Grant: "Approximation and learning in high dimensions," $4,000, October 19-21, 2007. Guergana Petrova, PI, NSF Conference Grant: "Approximation and learning in high dimensions," DMS-0708470, $15,000, July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008. Guergana Petrova, Travel Grant: SIAM, ICIAM, $1,300, July 16-20, 2007. Guergana Petrova, PI, ARO MURI Grant: "Model classes, approximation, and metrics for dynamic processing of urban terrain data," W911NF-07-1-0185, $201,000, May 1, 2007 to April 30, 2010. Mike Pilant, Partial funding to organize First Annual Doha Conference on Applied Mathematics and Computational Science, $30,000, 2007. Bojan Popov, Co-PI, Conference funding for Approximation and Learning in High Dimensions from Texas A&M, IMA and NSF, $23000, October 19-21, 2007. William Rundell, NSF Grant: "Reconstruction algorithms for inverse obstacle problems," DMS-0715060, $260,500, July 2007 to July 2010. Henry Schenck, NSF Grant: Applied Math "Surface modeling, approximation theory, and coding theory," September 1, 2007 to August 31, 2010, $65,799. Henry Schenck, NSA Grant: "Applied commutative algebra," H98230-07-1-0052, January 1, 2007 to January 1, 2009, $30,000. Frank Sottile, NSF Grant: "Applicable algebraic geometry: real solutions, applications, and combinatorics," DMS-0701050, $202,895, September 1, 2007 to August 31, 2010. Sarah Witherspoon, NSA Grant: "Cohomology, deformations, and representations of algebras,", $38,895, February 2007 to February 2009. Catherine Yan, NSF Grant: "Combinatorial patterns and structures," DMS-0653846, $117,273, September 01, 2007 to August 31, 2010. Catherine Yan, NSA Grant: "CombinaTexas: A Combinatorics Conference in the South-Central U.S.," $14,607, November 1, 2007 to October 31, 2009. Philip Yasskin, NSF Grant: "Collaborative Proposal: Maplets for Calculus," DMS-0737248, $73,144, January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2010. Jianxin Zhou, PI, NSF Grant: "Computational theory and methods for finding multiple solutions to differential systems," DMS-0713872, $181,270, July 10, 2007 to June 30, 2010. Joel Zinn, PI, NSA Grant: "Inequalities and limit theorems in probability with applications," $51,503, December 1, 2007 to November 30, 2009. Fall 2007 award recipients for the Department of Mathematics - Outstanding Staff - Cara Barton - Judy Muzny - Outstanding Service - Harold Boas - Philip Yasskin - Outstanding Teaching - Maurice Rojas - Mike Stecher Last modified June 18, 2010 by RLC.

Name: Send Results to This Email: Street Address: Street Address: « Back Changes in the model and delivery of health care and its potential impact on businesses and their employees will take center stage Thursday, Sept. 20, at the latest seminar presented by The Daily News. “The Business of Health Care,” moderated by The Daily News publisher Eric Barnes, will begin at 3:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 1934 Poplar Ave. A panel of local experts will participate in an in-depth discussion about the health care industry, including challenges, opportunities and the outlook through 2013. Panelists for the event are Susan Berry-Buckley, president and CEO of Lifeblood; Denise Burke, an attorney with Butler, Snow, O’Mara, Stevens & Cannada PLLC; and Kevin M. Spiegel, CEO and administrator at Methodist University Hospital. The seminar’s keynote speaker will be Dr. Michael Lachina, chief medical officer at Saint Francis Healthcare of Memphis and Bartlett, who practiced as a pediatrician for more than two decades before transitioning to health care administration. “The central theme, since I’m really staying on top of the transformational changes in our business, is centered around the new model of health care that I feel will continue to evolve throughout this decade,” said Lachina, who completed his undergraduate work and medical school at the University of Alabama, and holds a Master of Medical Management degree from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He will discuss the ways in which the new model has become instrumental in driving business decisions for health care organizations. “The new model is going to be a very different approach to delivering health care and getting paid in a different way, and that’s very much pertinent to talking about the business of health care,” said Lachina, who previously worked at Baptist Health System of East Tennessee in Knoxville and FirstHealth of the Carolinas in Pinehurst, N.C., before joining Saint Francis Healthcare. Lachina said he will present a brief review of past, present and predicted models of health care in the United States. “I thought this was going to be a five- or 10-year journey, but I’m seeing these changes happen much quicker, which is really surprising for health care,” he said. “We’re traditionally very slow to change.” The seminar discussion will touch on the impact of the Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court’s ruling on health care reform. “I’m going to stress what’s called the ‘Three Points of the Iron Triangle,’ the cost, quality and access piece,” Lachina said. “The Affordable Care Act is really about that, and I think those three things pretty much encompass what we’re going to be challenged with: how to best manage the cost, improve quality and ensure access. It’s an oversimplification, but it’s really the essence of the Affordable Care Act.” As for the panelists, Berry-Buckley leads Lifeblood, a regional, nonprofit, volunteer blood center that each year supplies more than 100,000 units of blood to and blood products for patient transfusion. Burke specializes in the areas of health care law, regulatory compliance counsel and advice, and government investigations. And Spiegel, board-certified in health care administration and a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives, has served as administrator and CEO of Methodist University Hospital in the Memphis Medical District since 2008. Horne LLC and Butler Snow are sponsors of Thursday’s seminar. The next seminar presented by The Daily News will be its “Commercial Real Estate Review & Forecast” Nov. 1, which will examine how commercial real estate has fared during 2012 and a preview of industry expectations for 2013. To register for upcoming seminars,

Jennifer Santana (left), Brittany Herron (right), and Joseph Lomas work in the new Center City location. Credit: Rikard Larma/Metro In an effort to lure young technology startups and to keep many of them in Center City, Mayor Michael Nutter's administration hasn't been shy about offering tax breaks. Nutter welcomed new technology startup Brand.com to the Curtis Center on Tuesday, the latest example of a handful of technology companies that moved to the city within the last year. Essentially, Brand.com shapes a company's online reputation. The company moved from West Chester. "Companies are coming here ... growing technology and entrepreneurial communities," Nutter said. To grow the business environment: "Start with a full exception from the city's business income and receipts tax for the first two years of operation," Nutter said. "If you start in that first year with three employees, and second year with another three, you pay no business taxes here in the city of Philadelphia." "We waive all fees for qualified businesses from a variety of licenses and regulatory requirements and their commercial activity license," he added. "Starting in 2014, there will be phased in a set of exceptions to the BIAR tax for all businesses across Philadelphia and we're renewing efforts to restart waste tax reductions." Other technology companies that have moved to Philadelphia in the last year include Fiberlink, Bentley Systems, SevOne and Bulogics. Companies like Curalate, Artisan, Seer Interactive and RJ Metrics chose to stay.

VICKSBURG — Christi and Brian Young already had one child by the time Gunner was born two and a half years ago. They thought they knew what to expect. But then Gunner was born two months early and had complications due to his prematurity. He needed help regulating his body temperature, needed to be fed through a tube, had reflux and was jaundiced, Christi Young said. The Young family, of Vicksburg, donates time and money to the March of Dimes to help further the organization's mission. This year, the family was chosen to be the organization's Ambassador Family. Their story will be featured during next Thursday's Signature Chefs Auction where the honoree will be professional bass angler Kevin VanDam, who is the father of twin sons who were born prematurely. "I think it's really because of our passion for the March of Dimes and that we're always willing to do the (March of Dimes) walks," Young said. She said she would often call the March of Dimes to see if there was anything else she could do to help the organization. She thought maybe she was annoying them by calling so often, she said. "I was honored (to be chosen), more than anything," said Young, 36. The family will talk at the auction about their experiences with the March of Dimes and with having a premature baby. Throughout the year, the family will go to different events for the March of Dimes to act as spokespeople to help other families by telling Gunner's story. The family started helping the March of Dimes before Gunner was born. "Ironically, I had planned on going to the March for Babies walk that weekend, but my water broke, so that didn't happen," Young explained. Young said she is grateful for the opportunity to be a spokesperson for the March of Dimes for a year. "I feel like what they've done in the past (with their research and support) has helped us the most, so I feel like I have to pay it forward," she said.

Packaging Corner: Achieve clarity with clear bins and containers February 01, 2013 - MMH Editorial Although colorful, opaque bins and containers have been used as a key component of shelf-based small parts organization for decades, no user has ever been able to look through their sidewalls to see the contents. Since x-ray vision technology for pickers is still not available, the need for a clear bin became, well, clear, says Ed Granger, director of sales at Quantum Storage Systems. “Clear bins and containers are great for inventory control because you can see into the bin to identify what is inside and how much of it there is,” he says, “especially when bins are located on shelving and are up as high as 5 to 6 feet off the ground. They also create a visually clean, sterile look which is important in certain markets, such as healthcare.” To address these issues, Quantum initially introduced two product lines of clear containers—a stack-and-hang bin and a shelf bin. But increasing demand for additional sizes prompted the company to expand its clear container offerings to more than 1,000 different models and sizes. His company was not the first to roll out clear containers, admits Granger. But, in his opinion, they have refined the manufacturing process and the material formulation to achieve the clearest level of opacity with the most optimal structural integrity. “The clear bins that were previously on the market either sacrificed clarity to maintain strength—making the container material appear somewhat milky and still difficult to see through—or had reduced structural integrity, lower volume capacity and a shorter lifespan to achieve a clear appearance,” he says. “Because we wanted a bin that had both clarity and sound structural integrity, we refined our engineering and manufacturing processes.” Granger acknowledges that the additional manufacturing steps result in a slightly more expensive product. “However, we’ve found that customers who want both clarity and strength in their containers are not put off by the price, because the advantages of the clear bins are important to them,” he says. The market opportunities for these clear bins and containers are virtually limitless, adds Granger. “In addition to industrial manufacturing and distribution and healthcare, we’ve seen interest from school systems and even from retailers—particularly those in the fasteners industry,” he says.<<

Yellowstone National Park grizzly bears could be removed from the Endangered Species list after a new federal report revealed that the bears are not threatened by the loss of one of their main foods, whitebark pine nuts. But outside scientists are criticizing the report, calling it incomplete, politically motivated and flawed. "It does not take into account the situation, the realities of the conditions on the ground in whitebark pine forests," said Jesse Logan, the retired head of the U.S. Forest Service's bark beetle research unit. Whitebark pines are increasingly falling victim to mountain pine beetles, which kill trees in the process of laying their eggs under the bark. Climate change has made the high-elevation whitebark pines more accessible to the destructive beetles. Bear battle The fight over the delisting of the Yellowstone grizzly population is a years-long saga. The bears were temporarily removed from the Endangered Species list in 2007, after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) declared that the animals' numbers had recovered sufficiently not to need federal protection. In 2009, a federal district court in Montana overturned the delisting, bumping the grizzlies back to protected status. The judge cited concerns that the USFWS had failed to consider the decline in whitebark pine in its decision. [Images: Trapping Yellowstone's Grizzlies] In recent years, the growth of Yellowstone's grizzly population has slowed or possibly declined. Part of the challenge of tracking the population's health is figuring out if this slowing is because bears are so crowded in their habitat that older bears are killing cubs, or if the slow-down is related to food scarcity. Bears rely on four major food sources in the Yellowstone region, said David Mattson, a visiting senior research scientist and lecturer at Yale University who studied the grizzlies for more than a decade as a U.S. Geological Survey scientist. One is calorie-rich whitebark pine nuts. Yellowstone bears also eat cutthroat trout, meat from elk and bison, and a fatty, high-elevation insect called the army cutworm moth. Pine nuts in particular are linked to birth and death rates, Mattson said in a press conference organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group for science in public politicy. "When female bears, in particular, eat more pine seeds, they give birth to more cubs, and they die at a lesser rate," Mattson said. The new recommendations to delist come to the USFWS from the Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee. According to a new federal report presented to the committee this week, bear health is not linked to the availability of whitebark pine nuts. Whitebark controversy Mattson and other outside scientists strongly contest those findings. The report downplays a published decline in grizzly bear fat composition dating to about 2006, when the impact of the loss of the whitebark pine started to be felt, Logan said. The USFWS was ill-prepared to track the outbreak of the beetle infestation, Logan told reporters during a press briefing on Dec. 12. When the agency first delisted the grizzly bear from the Endangered Species list in 2007, it estimated that 16 percent of the whitebark pine in the habitat had been affected by beetles. The sea of dead trees along ridgelines called that number into serious doubt, Logan said. "We were able to launch a study in the summer of 2009 to measure the impact of mountain pine beetles in whitebark pine," he said. "What we found was, rather than 16 percent had been impacted at some level, 95 percent had been impacted." The new report continues to paint a too-rosy picture, Logan said. The central habitat of the grizzlies is among the hardest-hit in the beetle epidemic, he said. And contrary to implications in the report, the infestation does not appear to be waning. The interagency committee "has a history of first denying what was occurring in whitebark and then underestimating, or in fact, misleading, the impact of the loss," Logan said. Habitat trouble Mattson and Logan further criticized the bear report for downplaying the links between pine nuts and grizzly health. Nor did the federal scientists expand their study beyond pine nuts, Mattson said. Evidence suggests that bears, especially females, are eating more meat to compensate for the loss of whitebark pine nuts. Meat provides plenty of calories, but it comes with a side of danger. Cubs and yearlings at a kill site are more likely to be killed by wolves or older bears than are cubs and yearlings snuffling for pine nuts. And meat-eating puts adult bears into closer contact with human hunters – and ranchers, should they go after livestock. [8 Ways Global Warming is Already Changing the World] The result has been an increase both in total number of bear deaths and in the proportion of bears killed by humans, Mattson said. Meanwhile, cutthroat trout are in decline, because of predation by a non-native fish. "There is not a single positive trend afoot in Yellowstone's grizzly bear habitat," Mattson said. Compounding the problem, Mattson said, is the fact that many of the studies in the federal report recommending delisting have not undergone review by outside scientists or have not been published in scientific journals, a crucial step in validating scientific research. What's next for grizzlies Keeping the grizzly bear on the endangered species list would provide one ray of hope in a bad situation, Mattson said: It would keep states from opening up hunting season on the bear. "One of the first things the states are going to do is, in fact, institute a sports hunt," Mattson said. "They've said so." Delisting grizzlies would also allow states more freely to kill bears that became a nuisance to livestock — a real concern in a time when bears and ranchers are clashing more frequently. Federal protection "makes it more likely that bears can continue to spread out into areas we know are suitable for bears," Mattson said. A wider range could bring the Yellowstone population in contact with other grizzly populations, making all of the populations less vulnerable in the long haul. The USFWS is not mandated to follow the committee recommendations, but it is likely to do so, said Kristin Carden, an attorney with Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy group. The next step in the process is for the agency to draft a delisting plan, with input from the Department of the Interior and the Department of Justice. Next, the plan would be open to public comment. Review of the studies used in the report or public outcry could alter the trajectory toward delisting, Carden told reporters. The final option is for organizations such as Earthjustice to file a lawsuit against the USFWS to prevent the delisting. Whatever happens, Yellowstone grizzlies face extraordinary challenges as climate change drives the loss of habitat and food sources. "What we have is a habitat fabric that is simply unraveling," Mattson said. Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience. Related on LiveScience and MNN:

Instituto welcomes 'Visiones' exhibit Art spans 70 years of Mexico's finest artists. By Elda Silva lsilva@express-news.net : August 7, 2011 : Updated: August 7, 2011 10:34pm As staff unpacked crates containing the artworks for the Instituto Cultural de México's latest exhibit, each piece was greeted individually. “When we opened every box, every container, we said, ‘Hello, welcome to the Instituto!'” says director Gabriela Franco. “I said, ‘Finally, we have this here!'” The cause of all the excitement? “Visiones del Arte Mexicano” (“Visions of Mexican Art”), an exhibition of works organized by the Mexican Ministry of Finance. The well-traveled exhibition was in Vancouver before making the journey to San Antonio. Currently on display, “Visiones del Arte Mexicano” spans five art movements and 70 years with works by masters including Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, Rafael Coronel, Jose Luis Cuevas and Javier de la Garza. Many of the pieces in the show are from the Ministry of Finance's Payment-in-Kind Collection — that is, works presented to the government agency by artists in lieu of monetary payment for taxes. Initially proposed by a group of artists including Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1957, the art-for-taxes program was put into effect by presidential decree in 1975. Since then, the Ministry of Finance has accumulated a collection of more than 4,000 artworks in various media, recently adding collage and photography to its purview. The other pieces in the exhibit are from the agency's heritage archive of some 10,000 objects, artifacts and artworks. Among the earliest works in the show is “The Photogenic Venus,” a cubist painting from 1935 nearly unrecognizable as a work by Tamayo. The Rivera piece in the show is also not typical of the artist. He painted “Containing the Ice of the Danube in Bratislava” — one of his last works — in 1956 from a drawing he made on a trip to Russia not long before his death. Other exhibit highlights include “Offering 1,” a sinuous large-scale sculpture by Juan Soriano, and “The Christian and the Moor” by Rafael Coronel. Franco made sure the stunning portrait of a black-clad figure clutching an eerily life-like red mask had a wall to itself because “this piece has to be alone,” she said. “It cannot be combined with (other pieces).” More recent works in the show include photographer Graciela Iturbide's iconic “Our Lady of the Iguanas” and de la Garza's “Morcilla/Blood Sausage,” a painting of a chacmool — a pre-Columbian stone figure — caked in dried blood. “Visiones del Pueblo” runs through Aug. 22 at the Instituto Cultural de México, HemisFair Park. Call 210-227-0123.

Wade Davis Anthropologist/Ethnobotanist Explorers Council, Explorer-in-Residence, 2000-2013 Photograph by Mark Thiessen Wade Davis was. His other books include Penan: Voice for the Borneo Rain Forest (1990), Shadows in the Sun (1993), Nomads of the Dawn (1995), One River (1996), which was nominated for the 1997 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction, The Clouded Leopard (1998), Rainforest (1998), Light at the Edge of the World (2001), The Lost Amazon (2004), Grand Canyon (2008), Book of Peoples of the World (ed. 2008) and The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World, the 2009 Massey lectures. His books have been translated into fifteen languages, including Basque, Serbian, Korean, Mandarin, Bulgarian, Japanese and Malay, and have sold approximately 800,000 copies worldwide. Davis’s latest books include: Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest, published by Knopf 2011 and The Sacred Headwaters published by Greystone, also in 2011. In 2012 and 2013 three additional books will appear including a second book of photographs covering Davis’s work 2000-2010. Davis will edit the journals of Oliver Wheeler, and also produce a work of literary nonfiction on the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. Sheets of Distant Rain will follow in 2014. Davis is the recipient of numerous awards including: The Explorers Medal, the highest award of the Explorers Club (2011), the Gold Medal of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (2009), the 2002 Lowell Thomas Medal (The Explorer’s Club) and the 2002 Lannan Foundation $125,000 prize for literary non-fiction. He has been granted Honorary Degrees (Doctorate of Sciences) from University of Victoria (2003), University of Guelph (2008), and Colorado College (2010), and (Doctorate of Laws) from the University of Northern British Columbia (2010) and the National College of Natural Medicine (2011). In 2004 he was made an Honorary Member of the Explorer’s Club, one of twenty. In 2012 he will receive the David Fairchild Medal, the most prestigious award for botanical exploration. A native of British Columbia, Davis, a licensed river guide, has worked as park ranger, forestry engineer, and conducted ethnographic fieldwork among several indigenous societies of northern Canada. He has published 185. His photographs have appeared in some 20 books and more than 80 magazines, journals and newspapers, including National Geographic, Time, Geo, People, Men’s Journal, Outside, and National Geographic Adventure. They have been exhibited at the International Center of Photography (I.C.P.), the Marsha Ralls Gallery, Washington, D.C., the United Nations (Cultures on the Edge exhibition 2004), the Carpenter Center of Harvard University, and the Utama Center, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Select images are part of the permanent collection of the U.S. State Department, Africa and Latin America Bureaus. 2013 publication with Douglas & McIntyre. Davis’ research has been the subject of more than 900 media reports and interviews in Europe, North and South America and the Far East, and has inspired numerous documentary films as well as three episodes of the television series, The X-Files. A professional speaker for over twenty-five, Musée du Quai Branly, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, the Chattaugua Institute, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank as well as some 150 universities, including Harvard, M.I.T., Oxford, Yale, Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, Duke, Vanderbilt, University of Pennsylvania, Tulane and Georgetown. He has spoken at the Aspen Institute, Bohemian Grove and on numerous occasions for the Young President’s Organization and at the TED Conference. His clients have included amongst others Microsoft, Shell, Hallmark, Fidelity Investments, International Baccalaureate, Bank of Nova Scotia, MacKenzie Financials, Healthcare Association of Southern California, National Science Teachers Association, Promega, NDMA (Non-prescriptive Drug Manufacturers Association), International Baccalaureate, European Council of International Schools, Canadian Association of Petroleum Geologists, Canadian Association of Exploration Geophysicists, American Trial Lawyer’s Association, American Judges Association, American Bankers Association, Centaur Technology, Canadian Association of Actuaries, Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, as well as several leading pharmaceutical companies including Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Davis was a founding board member of the David Suzuki Foundation and he recently completed a six-year term on the board of the Banff Centre, Canada’s leading institution for the arts. He currently serves on the board of the Amazon Conservation Association.uvut, Greenland, Nepal and Peru, which is currently airing in 165 countries on the National Geographic Channel and in the USA on the Smithsonian Network. He is a principal character in Grand Canyon Adventure, a 3D IMAX film, released by MacGillivray Freeman in 2008. Currently playing in 55 theatres worldwide, the film has grossed $30 million. Other television credits include the award winning documentaries, Spirit of the Mask, Cry of the Forgotten People, Forests Forever, and Earthguide, a 13 part television series on the environment, which aired on the Discovery Channel in 1990. Davis has recently completed a new four-hour series for the National Geographic, Ancient Voices/Modern World, which. Sierra Nevada Indians..”

The chamber recently released its annual “scorecard” showing how Georgia’s 56 senators and 180 House members voted on a series of bills the organization supported in the recently completed session of the general assembly. Just more than half of senators, 29, voted for all eight chamber-backed bills listed on the Senate survey. A higher percentage, 62 percent, of members voted for all seven chamber-backed bills on the House scorecard. District 66 State Rep. Kim Alexander, D-Hiram, was among 38 House members from both parties to score 86 percent, giving her a B+. She broke with the group in its support of a bill to prevent private firms from encouraging teachers to file for unemployment during the summer. Alexander said the chamber’s voting scorecard makes up a small percentage of the legislation covered in the session. “The Georgia chamber, like any other group, is interested with certain pieces of legislation which they feel directly impacts their members,” Alexander said. “That being said, it is important to remind our constituents that this report card covers [seven] votes out of a possible 272 which I cast during the session.” Alexander said she was “elated” with her grade and was proud of the relationship she has developed with the organization in her first term. “There are many areas where the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and I agree with economic development and job creation being just two examples,” she said. Alexander added her constituents would be more interested in reviewing “my entire body of work as a legislator, including all of my votes on issues and my constituent services.” District 35 State Sen. Donzella James, D-Atlanta, who scored 75 percent for a B grade, said most of her constituents have issues of higher importance to them than the state’s overall economy. “My constituents know I support, and am interested in, bringing new business to the state’s economy,” she said. However, although her constituents have different issues of primary importance to them, the overall state economy may not be at the top of their list unless they are seeking employment, James said. “If they were seeking employment, they would be interested in companies looking to expand or relocate someplace near them and the number of jobs that company would be developing,” she said. James felt her voting “grade” meant the statewide organization saw her as “above average” in support of its issues. “I can’t say that I vote as the Georgia chamber would like for me to vote on every single issue of importance to them,” she said. “However, the issues I support are, in my viewpoint, in the best interest of Georgia.” James said that during the last legislative session, there were only two bills in which she differed with the chamber. “I believe the chamber realizes I am very pro-business when it comes to bringing in new business and new jobs to our state and primarily my district,” James said.

David Bottner believes homeless people are like you and me. “If you saw a homeless person and me walking down the street, you wouldn’t know the difference between the two of us,” he said. “They’re people with a purpose, people to be valued, not to be tossed away.” Since Bottner became director of the New Orleans Mission in June, that has been his abiding philosophy. You can see what he means if you join the mission’s Big Easy Big Heart Fun Run and Walk in Aububon Park on Saturday, April 20. “We’re bringing a busload of men and women who are changing their lives at the mission, and they’ll be walking or running,” he said. After the one-mile and 5K walk and run, the people participating in various mission programs will have a picnic and play volleyball and softball. “We want them to enjoy the day,” Bottner said. “The last time a homeless guy got to play softball was probably when he was a kid.” The benefit aims to do more than raise money for the mission’s programs. It’s also a way for us to learn about those programs and get to know the people who are transforming their lives at the mission, a private faith-based nonprofit service provider for the homeless people of New Orleans. Bottner wants to change our perception about the shelter and about his guests who come to the big old building at the foot of Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. “This isn’t a place where you wake up, eat a meal, go to bed and everything’s the same the next day, like that movie “Groundhog Day,” he said. “We’re giving men and women hope for the future and showing them they have a special purpose in life.” Services at the New Orleans Mission are free for the guests. “There are no fees, not even for the fun run,” Bottner said. “One of our amazing board members is sponsoring the men and women.” In addition to serving 18,000 meals each month and increasing the available space from 166 to 252 beds, the mission has different programs for different needs. One program provides short-term emergency help, and another is a four-month program for people with no place to live who need to find permanent jobs and learn to manage their money. “We also have a one-year program for homeless individuals with deep needs like addictions and mental health issues,” Bottner said. The mission sends out evangelism teams to find those desperately in need of help. “We take a proactive approach and go out to the guys drinking under the bridge and begging for money,” he said. “We’re concerned about the men and women dying on the streets.” The teams include staff members, volunteers, and men and women who once were among those begging for money or living under a bridge and are now taking part in mission programs. “We show them the success stories. We show them they can change,“ Bottner said. Bottner and his staff and volunteers are turning the mission into a community resource, too. “We bring food out into the community three days a week, and I wish we could do it seven,” he said. “When a woman has to choose between paying the rent and feeding her family, she’s going to feed her family.” Much of the mission’s food is provided by Second Harvest, and that has to be served at the shelter, but other food donations are distributed in the Central City neighborhood outside the mission's doors. “We got 28,000 pounds one time, which was great for outreach,” Bottner said. “We see so much poverty, and we help with paying rent and light bills, too.” The shelter also has community celebrations, with help from local businesses. The most recent one was an Easter egg hunt for neighborhood children. “We had a huge Easter egg hunt with 10,000 eggs and 500 Easter baskets,” Bottner said. “Then we took some of the baskets out to the community along with 600 meals.” I first heard about Bottner’s innovative ideas from Bennie Nobles, a doctor who has served on the board and has been a volunteer at the mission for 20 years. “The programs David has going on are just phenomenal,” he said. “It’s one thing to feed people, but it’s another thing to give them a hand up.” Bottner, 40, comes from a business background. In fact, his businesses allowed him to take over the New Orleans Mission for a year and be paid a salary of $1. “My dollar runs through June 8,” he said. “The amazing thing is, the businesses I’ve gotten rid of have taken care of my family’s needs. When you surrender your life to God, he takes care of everything.” Last year, Bottner was running his automotive marketing company and working with Compassion Outreach, a Slidell agency that helps the poor and homeless, when the directors of the New Orleans Mission resigned suddenly and announced that the shelter would close because it was down to its last $3,000. Bottner had met Stacy Horn-Koch, who oversees homeless services in New Orleans, and had told her of his desire to work with the homeless. “She connected me with the board, and here we are nine months later,” he said. When I asked him if his wife had given her blessing to his sudden job change and the $1 salary, he laughed. “She wasn’t when I first did it, because she was pregnant with our little girl and her hormones were raging,” he said. “But now she wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I can’t believe how proud I am of my husband.” As soon as Bottner took over the mission, a board member’s relative donated $30,000 to keep it operating. “He was the gentleman who literally kept the mission open,” Bottner said. “He wanted to remain anonymous, but he was a great blessing.” When Bottner took over as director of the mission, he asked God: “Is this for one year, or is this permanent?” He says that now, he has his answer. “The goal was to train someone to do this job, but trying to train somebody else and get the programs and services together in a year wasn’t a reality,” he said. “We’re making strides, but we’re not where we should be yet.” He wants to renovate the 100-year-old men’s facility this year, and his goal for 2014 is to create a family center. “I used to sell advertising, and I got satisfaction from getting a big contract,” he said. “I get a lot more satisfaction seeing people make deep, forever changes in their lives.” When I asked if he would work for $1 in the coming year, he said he might need to take a salary because he has three young children. “But the Lord has blessed my family from my businesses before,” he said. “I’ll do it for free if he tells me to again.” Bottner remembers a day 20 years ago when he found an eviction notice on his door because he had lost his job and hadn’t been able to pay his rent. “I lived in my little blue car, and then I stayed at a friend’s house until I got another job,” he said. “Not everybody has that friend to go to.” But people can go to the New Orleans Mission, and he feels blessed to be a part of it. “I know God has me on this path,” he said. “ This is where I’m supposed to be.” The Big Easy Big Heart Fun Run and Walk What: A one-mile and 5K fun run and walk to benefit the New Orleans Mission and raise awareness about homelessness in New Orleans. When: Saturday, April 20, from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. Race day registration begins at 7:30 a.m. The one-mile run/walk begins at 8:30 a.m., and the 5K begins at 8:50 a.m. Where: Audubon Park in the Riverview area behind the zoo (also known as the “fly”). Cost: Preregistration by April 16 is $20, or $15 for those 15 and younger or 65 and older. After that date, registration is $25, or $20 for those 15 and younger or 65 and older. Register for the walk/run at the New Orleans Mission. Registration includes refreshments and a race T-shirt. Get more: To learn more about volunteering at the mission or to make a donation, go to the New Orleans Mission website.

The crash scene in November before the Round Tower was demolished. Gina Bebbington, Chief Reporter / / NewsFollow @ginabebbington A LANDMARK tower could finally be rebuilt in Sandiway this summer. Applications to reconstruct the much-loved Round Tower, which stood in the middle of the A556 at its junction with Norley Road, will be submitted within the next month. The Grade II listed structure was demolished after a car ploughed into it in November. Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWAC) said the demolition was in the interests of public safety as the tower had been left unstable after the crash. CWAC’s building officers are almost ready to submit both a planning application and a listed building application, which will be considered by planners and the Government before work can begin. A council spokesman said: “In the next four weeks building officers will submit a planning application and a listed building consent application, to rebuild the Grade ll listed Round Tower in Northwich at its location on the A556. “The application will be submitted to the council’s planning department, where it will be the subject of an eight week determination process, as well as a 21 day public consultation period. “This consultation period will also seek the views of relevant conservation bodies, including English Heritage. “Once this eight week period has concluded, the council’s planning officers will consider the submissions on the proposal and then submit a recommendation for either approval or refusal of the application to the Secretary of State, who then have a further eight weeks to determine whether or not to uphold the council’s recommendations. “If the recommendation is for approval from the Secretary of State, a tender process will take place for a suitable conservation contractor, with a view to rebuilding work starting on the tower during the summer months.” Report this comment

Search: The tallgrass prairie during its peak summer bloom in July NPS Photo The scenery of the prairie is striking and never fails to cause an exclamation of surprise... the flowers are beautiful; the absence of shade and... profusion of light produce a gaiety which animates the beholder. Judge James Hall, circa 1839 The scenery of the prairie is striking and never fails to cause an exclamation of surprise... the flowers are beautiful; the absence of shade and... profusion of light produce a gaiety which animates the beholder. Judge James Hall, circa 1839 The 81 acres of tallgrass prairie reconstructed here offer a glimpse of an Iowa landscape that had almost vanished by the time Herbert Hoover's grandparents moved here in 1854. Prior to the settlement of West Branch, prairie covered 85 percent of Iowa. Trees were scarce until planted; the Hoovers imported lumber from farther north for construction of the president’s birthplace. Tall native grasses, sprinkled with brilliantly colored wildflowers once covered these rolling hills for as far as the eye could see. People and wildlife leave their tracks on the prairie trails in winter Hoover's Legacy Of Public Lands Conservation Herbert Hoover, an avid fisherman and proponent of outdoor recreation, saw the value in conserving natural resources. During his presidency, the size of our national forests expanded by more than two million acres, and the land designated for new national parks and monuments increased by 40 percent. In honor of his conservation achievements and his fondness for the outdoors, this prairie offers a quiet and dignified setting to commemorate the life of the 31st president. Trails This prairie offers over two miles of trails through the reconstructed prairie for hiking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and nature study.. The Herbert Hoover Prairie Trails were designated National Recreational Trails in 1981. For Teachers Teachers can prepare their classes for a visit to the prairie with lesson plans and activities Tallgrass prairie was part of the Iowa landscape that had almost vanished by the time Herbert Hoover’s grandparents moved here in 1854. The prairie abuts lands that has been farmed since Herbert Hoover's childhood Valuable Farmland Iowa's prairies became some of the most valuable farmland in the world. The plowed fields of the Miles Farm characterized the immediate landscape during Hoover’s youth. Prairie remnants persisted along the creeks and railroad tracks where Hoover spent many boyhood hours exploring. Young Bert Hoover: Sod Buster Hoover enjoyed a keen interest in the natural world and often referred to boyhood experiences: “I was taken for a summer to live with Uncle Pennington Minthorn in Sioux County, Iowa, where he was breaking in a prairie farm. We lived in a sod house and I was privileged to ride the lead horse of a team which was opening the virgin soil.” Lost Resource The tradeoff is that today less than one percent of prairie land still exists in Hoover's home state. This is one reason the National Park Service restored this historic cultivated field to much of its original splendor. Because their root systems run as deep as the plants are tall, native prairie grasses are well-adapted for controlling runoff and stabilizing areas susceptible to erosion. A firefighter ignites the dry grasses as part of a prescribed fire in the spring Reconstructed Prairie The National Park Service reconstructed a tallgrass prairie in 1971 to represent the vast grassland that once covered 85 percent of Iowa. The park planted native species of grasses on land that had been farm fields for more than a century. A prairie garden (PDF file) at the visitor center has examples of tallgrass prairie plants.. Last Updated: 06/29/2015

City Council meetings aren't all about budgets, development applications and debating local issues. At each San Clemente council meeting, the city sets aside time to salute local achievements. Some examples from Jan. 7: LIFEGUARDS Marine Safety Chief Bill Humphreys and Marine Safety Officers Nick Giugni and Ian Burton accepted an award from the U.S. Lifesaving Association. The award was in recognition of the city's public education and outreach – taking information about ocean safety into local schools every spring to prepare for summer, making appearances at local events, creating a Neighborhood Beach Watch partnership with the community and reaching youth through the city's Junior Lifeguard program. DAVID DENDEL Did you know that David Dendel sawed off the city's collapsed pier during a 1983 storm to save the Fisherman's Restaurant? He and others worked to protect the pier during devastating storms in 1983 and 1988 as part of his city maintenance career, which began in 1980. He retired Jan. 8 as maintenance services manager. “This city has character,” he told the city's elected leaders, “and the reason it has character is because the people that work here care about this community.” PABLO BARGUEÑO As the city's staffer in charge of digital maps, displays, presentations, graphics and geographic information systems, Pablo Bargueño worked 22 years for the city, retiring Jan. 2. He began in 1991 as a community development technician. Mayor Tim Brown said Bargueño earned the respect of citizens, staff and the City Council for his dedication and his multiple contributions. “I'm a person of few words,” Bargueño said. “All I did all these years was trying to do my job as best I could. I enjoyed the ride. I appreciate the support.” TENNIS COURTS The City Council also recognized San Clemente residents who play tennis and whose persistence led the council to repair and reopen the long-dormant Bonito Canyon Park tennis courts, where foundation problems were so costly that the city decided it couldn't afford a permanent fix. City staff, at the council's direction, devised a temporary fix that has the courts back in action, but no guarantees on how long it will.

![endif]--> “Civil society actors must be able to do their work freely, independently, safe from fear, retaliation or intimidation. This requires collective action to denounce reprisals and defend free voices and protect those targeted,” said the UN Secretary-General, referring to civil society as “an indispensable part of the United Nations”. “We must expand the space for civil society to meaningfully participate and contribute,” he added in a video statement screened at a discussion on the promotion and protection of civil society space, in the context of the Human Rights Council’s 25th session. “Civil society actors around the world face risks ranging from threats and intimidation to horrible reprisals, even killings”, said UN Human Rights Deputy, Flavia Pansieri at a discussion on the promotion and protection of civil society space. “From the NGO who is prohibited from receiving funding to the whistle-blower who is imprisoned for revealing corruption… we must work to protect civil society from such practices,” she said. In her opening remarks, Pansieri highlighted the importance of civil society in helping people develop advocacy skills, shaping strategies, mobilizing claims, acting as a critical watchdog and informing people of their rights and duties. Hina Jilani, a Pakistani human rights lawyer and one of the world’s pre-eminent human rights defenders, said that we have a long way to go to bring about the recognition that civil society not only benefits civil society, but also strengthens the state and explained that this is because of the many ways civil society expresses public opinion and can highlight the responsibilities of authority figures. The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Frank La Rue, added that international bodies and governments alone cannot achieve the fulfilment of the protection and promotion of human rights without the full participation of civil society. “Civil society is the crucial element that guarantees that rights will be protected,” he said. “We are not talking about special rights for civil society, but about human rights that we defend for everyone…There should not be any special restrictions applied to civil society. It makes me worried if I see legislation that tries to limit the way people can organize freely or get funding for those associations because then it limits a legitimate, open and transparent activity which is organized for the defense of human rights,” La Rue added, stressing that everyone has a right to defend human rights. During the interactive discussion which was organized in the context of the UN Human Rights Council’s 25th Session, Safak Pavey, a Turkish member of parliament and member of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), gave an example of how civil society was able to influence the Government in her own country. “Last year, attempts by the Government to develop protected spaces and national parks,” she said referring to the urban development plan for Istanbul's Taksim Gezi Park, “were prevented as a result of the work of 121 nature and environmental rights organizations. As a result of their systematic efforts, the Government withdrew the draft bill,” she said. As dangers posed by states emerged, civil society rose to meet those challenges, she said. “From women’s rights and environmental issues to humanitarian aid and constitutional reform, civil society became indispensable in every area where societal challenges formed.” Mokhtar Trifi, a Tunisian defender and Honorary President of the Tunisian League for Human Rights, gave an example of civil society’s fundamental role in building the state in Tunisia, following the revolution. In the months leading up to the landmark 2011 elections, Trifi spoke of the more than 10,000 people who were trained to monitor the electoral process. “Every single phase of the elections was very closely monitored by civil society,” he said, adding that this led to a Constituent Assembly. “The main goal of the Constituent Assembly was to draft a new constitution. The process took three years, and civil society played a critical role in it, in particular insisting on the provisions for full equality between women and men … Nowadays, civil society continues to play a role in development of central laws essential for human rights and democracy”, Trifi added. The powerful role of art and artists in civil society was highlighted by Deeyah Khan, a critically acclaimed music producer and Emmy award-winning documentary film director. “Art has the capacity to make us think and feel: both elements make it much harder to control us, to break our spirits and to impose on us things that are inhuman,” said Khan, who is an artist and activist through FUUSE, her own production company, which uses films to inform and encourage discussions on human rights issues. “The power of art is demonstrated in the efforts taken to crush it,” she added, giving an example of the Taliban in Afghanistan, who took extensive measures to ban art and music from the public sphere. This interactive panel discussion is the first formal discussion in the Human Rights Council on the issue of civil society space as a human rights concern. In an effort to facilitate the participation of persons with disabilities, international sign language interpretation and captioning was provided and webcasted. The panel discussion drew on diverse experiences from the panellists as well as representatives of States, National Human Rights Institutions, non-governmental organisations, and UN agencies in identifying the challenges, lessons learned, good practices, steps and strategies in the promotion and protection of civil society space. A summary report on the panel discussion will be presented to the Human Rights Council at its 27th session. 26 March 2014 Civil and Political Rights Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Civil Society

This profile is part of a two-week series in which Overdrive will be publishing stories about the four Pride & Polish National Championship winners — crowned in August at The Great American Trucking Show — and the four best of show winners from the event. When Josh Skidmore set out to build his National Championship award winner, he didn’t want it to be overwrought or complicated. “We wanted to be simpler than everyone else,” Skidmore says. “Clean lines, not a lot of flash – a real functional, working truck.” The 2007 Peterbilt 379 Legacy Edition truck was built at his company, Skidmore Transportation Services, in Brigham City, Utah. “Our head mechanic, Todd Henry, did maybe 85, 90 percent of the work,” he says. The only thing their shop didn’t do was the exterior paint. It took the crew about a year and a half to build, but the 41-year-old says his first show truck was worth it. “We took first place at the PDI Dyno event, Best of Show in Las Vegas and took first place and Best of Show at the Salt Lake Kidney Camp show,” he says. “We learned quite a bit at the Vegas show in 2012.” The idea for the Working Bobtail truck was born from a friend’s sketch. From that concept, with a lot of work poured into the project – including four hours to clean the wheels and axle after a truck wash used acidic degreaser – they came out with a great start for the 9-year-old company’s first showing. “There’s a lot of money involved, but as far as satisfaction goes for winning, yeah, it was worth it,” Skidmore says. – Sean Randall OverdriveOnline.com strives to maintain an open forum for reader opinions. Click here to read our comment policy.

By: Steve Toloken September 26, 2012. The pact, announced Sept. 21 at Taipei Plas, generally is designed to build stronger ties between Taiwan’s large machinery sector and PAGEV, the umbrella group of Turkish plastics associations, but it does not contain any specific measures that directly boost trade. PAGEV also organizes Turkey’s national fair, Plast Eurasia, which is scheduled for Nov. 29 to Dec. 2 in Istanbul. Turkey’s plastics sector spends about US$700 million a year on equipment, with more than 90 percent of it imported, as the processing sector grows about 10 percent a year, according to Mehmet Uysal, president of the Istanbul-based Turkish Plastics Manufacturers Research Development and Educational Foundation, also known as PAGEV. “We realize that our companies tend to buy Taiwanese machines because the Turkish plastics industry needs inexpensive but better-quality machines,” said Uysal, speaking through a translator in an interview after the signing ceremony. Taiwanese plastics machinery firms export about $31 million worth of equipment a year to Turkey, making the country Taiwan’s ninth-largest export market for its plastics machinery, said Jeremy Horng, executive director of the exhibition department of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, or TAITRA, which organizes Taipei Plas. The show was held Sept. 21-25 in Taipei. The agreement calls for the two groups to promote each other’s fairs and trade advertisements, and to build high-level contacts between the industries in both countries, such as a delegation of 10 Turkish industry executives that attended the show in Taiwan. Uysal said Turkey is also a frequent base for Asian and European firms that want to enter the Middle East market. Turkey’s plastics industry had projected 15 percent growth this year, but conflict and political strife in the region has probably cut growth to 10 percent, he said.

The governor of the oil rich state says the state cannot address the floods alone. The floods that have ravaged communities in Delta State have killed two people and displaced a hundred thousand others, the Delta State Governor, Emanuel Uduaghan, said on Monday in Asaba, the state capital. Mr. Uduaghan said the scope of the damage is far beyond the capacity of the state, and appealed to the Federal Government to come to the aid of the state. He also called on the private sector, philanthropists, non-governmental organizations, and Nigerians to come to the aid of the state. According to him, the situation is ’grave and grim’ with no fewer than 100 communities in about 10 Local Government areas in the state affected by the flood. The local government areas affected by the flood include Patani, Isoko South, Isoko North, Ndokwa East, Bomadi, Burutu, Oshimili North and South, as well as Ughelli North and Ughelli South. He explained that the River Niger over flowed its banks, covering an average distance of between 6 and 10 km in the affected communities, adding that the tide was increasing by the day. The governor also said that within a period of three days, the number of communities affected had increased and there was the fear of total flooding of the communities. He described the situation as devastating and a huge challenge, adding that most of the rehabilitation camps are stretched. He further said that mattresses, food items, and medical treatment had been arranged for the victims. He charged the committee on flood headed by the state’s Deputy Governor, Amos Utuama, to be transparent in their dealings and ensure that no item meant for the victims were diverted. Mr. Uduaghan also charged the committee to set up sub-committees in the local government areas, and involve residents of the affected communities in the distribution of relief materials and movement of victims. He then appealed to those in the flood prone zones not to wait until they were in danger before relocating. “The river is surging into communities on a daily basis and increasing in tempo, let everyone in the flood prone areas come out before it is too late because a stitch in time saves nine,’’ he said. Mr. Utuama has earlier told the governor that it is becoming increasingly difficult to access some of the affected communities. He said that the committee had gone round to take physical count of communities affected in the state and assured the victims of government’s determination to secure their lives and property. The deputy governor also said that the rehabilitation camps are well secured, and commended some organisations, particularly the Red Cross, for their support.

Oilsands community no cancer hotspot: study EDMONTON — A study by the Alberta government says an aboriginal community downstream from the oilsands doesn’t have higher overall cancer rates. The Alberta Health Services survey, which used data from 1992 to 2011, did find the prevalence of two kinds of cancer in Fort Chipewyan was higher than would be expected. James Talbot, chief medical health officer, says relatively high levels of cervical and bile duct cancer are most likely to be attributable to other factors than environmental contamination. “Overall, cancer rates in the region are what would be expected for the rest of Alberta,” he said Monday when the survey was released. Leaders in Fort Chipewyan reacted to the report with suspicion. They said a statistical analysis of data that already existed doesn’t fulfil their requests for a full-blown health study. “There’s nothing (here) in regards to a comprehensive, independent study that we’ve been requesting, where government and industry have no participation in it,” said Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. Chief Steve Courtoreille of the Mikisew Cree also dismissed the survey. “The government of Alberta has consistently downplayed the significance of cancer in my community,” he said. “They have done that again today in their reports to the media that there is no reason for alarm of increased levels of cancers in my community.” Potential health impacts on people living downstream of the oilsands are a common concern for local residents and for industry critics. Fort Chipewyan’s concerns surfaced recently in Washington, D.C., when they were discussed at a hearing hosted by a Democratic senator who opposes the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast. The government survey compared the incidence of 81 cases of 18 different types of cancer to the Alberta average. Bile duct and cervical cancer rates were high enough above average to be statistically significant. Cervical cancer is caused by a virus and U.S. research shows only weak links between bile duct cancers and environmental toxins, said Talbot. “There’s only weak evidence for that to be associated with bile duct cancer and there are a lot of other, stronger-linked ones that we can do something about in the community.” Bile duct cancer is more strongly linked to diabetes, obesity, cirrhosis and hepatitis C, Talbot said. He added that cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan’s children under 15 are low, which also suggests environmental contamination isn’t a significant factor because children are more sensitive to it. There’s also some initial evidence to suggest that aboriginals suffer from bile duct cancer at a higher rate than average, Talbot said. The chief medical health officer did acknowledge that people in Fort Chipewyan are probably correct in their feeling that cancer is becoming more common. Rates of the disease are gradually rising everywhere, partly because the population is getting older, Talbot said. “The perception is that there’s more cancer and to some extent that’s correct, but it’s not unique to this community.” Chief Adam and Alberta Liberal Leader Raj Sherman said the survey was too limited in its approach. “This report appears to be a whitewash because of its internal nature and because of its extremely narrow focus,” said Sherman. Both Sherman and Adam are calling for a comprehensive Fort Chipewyan health study to be conducted by a group independent of industry and government. The government had commissioned such a study, but the chief and council for one area band backed out over fears it wouldn’t be independent. The band also wanted assurances it would focus on cancer rates and would include a baseline health study, neither of which it got. The Athabasca Chipewyan has since commissioned its own health review. Adam said it should be released soon. The government study was quickly released Monday in Edmonton after the Alberta Liberals obtained a copy of it through access-to-information legislation. Alberta Health Services had planned to share it first with the community, but a meeting to do that was cancelled after the government refused to give advance copies of the survey to the First Nations involved, said an Athabasca Chipewyan band spokeswoman. Courtoreille was angry the survey was released to reporters before his community had a chance to look at it. “Health Minister (Fred) Horne had promised to get us a copy of the report prior to releasing of these statistics and that didn.

See Sir Frederic Osborn and A. Whettick, The New Towns (2d rev. ed. 1969); H. Evans, ed., New Towns: The British Experience (1972). Designated new towns were removed from local-authority control and placed under the supervision of a Development Corporation. The Corporations were later disbanded and their assets split between local authorities and, in England, the Commission for New Towns (now English Partnerships). The first wave was to help alleviate the housing shortages following World War II, in the green belt around London. A couple of sites in County Durham were also designated. These designations were made under the New Towns Act 1946. The second wave (1961–64) was to help assuage housing short falls. Two of the below (Redditch and Telford) are situated near the West Midlands conurbation; another two (Runcorn and Skelmersdale) are situated near Merseyside. Cramlington and Killingworth were constructed from the 1960s by local authorities but were not designated new towns. The third and last wave of new towns (1967–70) allowed for additional growth chiefly further north from the previous London new towns, with a few developments between Liverpool and Manchester. Dawley New Town was re-designated as Telford New Town, with a much larger area. No new towns have been designated since 1970. The New Towns Act (Northern Ireland) 1965 gave the Minister of Development of the Government of Northern Ireland the power to designate an area as a New Town, and to appoint a Development Commission. An order could be made to transfer municipal functions of all or part of any existing local authorities to the commission, which took the additional title of urban district council, although unelected. This was done in the case of Craigavon. The New Towns Amendment Act (Northern Ireland) 1968 was passed to enable the establishment of the Londonderry Development Commission to replace the County Borough and rural district of Londonderry, and implement the Londonderry Area Plan. On April 3, 1969 the development commission took over the municipal functions of the two councils, the area becoming Londonderry Urban District. On 13 May 2007, Gordon Brown, who was shortly to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, announced that he would designate ten new "eco-towns" to ease demand for low-cost housing. The towns, of approximately 20,000 population each—at least 5000 homes—are planned to be "carbon-neutral" and will use locally generated sustainable-energy sources. Only one site was identified in the announcement: the former Oakington Barracks in Cambridgeshire. Local councils will be invited to provide sites for the remaining four towns. The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) is advising the Government on the criteria and best practice in developing the eco-towns by producing a series of "worksheets" for developers.

Bruce Smith Dr. Bruce Smith has been a member of the engineering faculty at RIT since 1988. He is currently a Professor and the Director of Microsystems Engineering and an extended faculty member with the Center for Imaging Science and the Center for Materials Science and Engineering. He received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in imaging science from RIT where he specialized in thin film materials and high resolution semiconductor lithography. Prior to joining the university, he held development positions at Digital Equipment Corporation and AMI Semiconductor. In addition to teaching for the Microsystems Engineering and Electrical & Microelectronic Engineering programs, Dr. Smith and his group in the Nanolithography Research Laboratory carry out research in areas of micro- and nano-fabrication including nanolithography, thin film materials, and optical engineering. Their work is directed toward leading edge electronic, micromechanical, and display devices and structures. Dr. Smith is also the founder of Amphibian Systems, a semiconductor R&D equipment company in Rochester, NY with sales and contracts in the US, Asia, and Europe. Dr. Smith has received numerous research grants from federal agencies, research consortia, and industrial groups. He has published over 130 papers, presented over 50 keynote, plenary, or invited talks, authored several book chapters, and his textbook “Microlithography: Science and Technology” has become widely used worldwide for academics and professionals. He holds 27 patents in areas including illumination systems, masking devices, optical system design, and materials engineering, several of which have been licensed for commercialization. Dr. Smith has been a key contributor in the development and adoption of excimer laser water immersion nanolithography, leading research efforts in the dominant technology for current semiconductor device manufacturing. Dr. Smith is a Fellow of the OSA, a Fellow of SPIE, a Senior Member of IEEE, and a member of AVS, ASEE, and SID. He is the recipient of the RIT Trustees Scholarship Award, the SPIE Research Mentoring Award, the RIT Creators Award, the Rush Henrietta Outstanding Alumni Award, the RIT Million Dollar Principle Investigator Award, the RIT Patenting Productivity Award, the Intel Professorship of Research and Technology, and has been a visiting professor with SEMATECH at the University of Texas (UT, Austin) and with IMEC at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL, Belgium). Additional information about Dr. Smith and the Nanolithography Research Laboratory can be found at .

Everything you need to know about the TRC Click to watch the Arms deal proceedings Sunday 14 April 2013 09:10 SABC Both JMPD and EMS remain separate entities under the umbrella of Public Safety(SABC) The City of Joburg says it is still searching to find a suitable candidate to head its Public Safety in the city. The Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) and Emergency Management Services (EMS) are to be combined under the umbrella of Public Safety. Both the JMPD and EMS have been facing a number of challenges relating to fraud, corruption and financial mismanagement. City spokesperson, Nthatisi Modingoane, says merging both entities is part maximising the efficacies of different functions within the City of Joburg. “We are looking at where there are lack of efficiencies, where there are duplications so that we streamline the functions. JMPD will remain JMPD, EMS will remain EMS under the umbrella of Public Safety which has been elevated to a strategic position which is a group function which will look at safety holistically in the City of Johannesburg,” says Modingoane. Both the JMPD and EMS have been facing a number of challenges relating to fraud, corruption and financial mismanagement. Meanwhile the Democratic Alliance (DA) says it's unlikely that the proposed merger of JMPD and EMS will help improve the efficiency of ambulances. The DA's Jack Bloom says the Gauteng Department of Health must intervene in the matter. “The problem is that the Emergency Ambulance Services are in a deplorable state. They have very poor response time. I think that the Gauteng Health Department needs to intervene and and ensure that Johannesburg gets a decent emergency response ambulance team because at the moment, there's very poor response times. People are dying because ambulances are very slow,” says Bloem.

Abdus Salam used his genius to promote science in the developing world, but his legacy remains unfulfilled, says Athar Osama. Abdus Salam, whose 87th birth anniversary was celebrated this week (29 January), was more than a Nobel prize-winning physicist. Salam’s influence on society was, perhaps, second only to Albert Einstein’s. A bright star in the galaxy of scientists that graced one of the most productive centuries of modern science, Salam was to the developing world what Einstein was to the developed. That "Salam was a genius and for genius to end up winning Nobel Prize is no big surprise," writes Nidhal Guessoum, a professor of physics and astronomy in his book 'Islam's Quantum Question' [1]. Salam's outlook was greatly affected by his experiences as a young scientist in his native Pakistan. After graduating from Cambridge – where he won the Smith's Prize for the most outstanding pre-doctoral contribution to physics – and gaining a PhD at the Cavendish Laboratory, he returned to Pakistan, feeling an obligation to serve. Intellectual loneliness in Pakistan In 1951, he became a lecturer and then head of the mathematics department at the Government College, Lahore. Though he was already a celebrity among the small scientific community in Pakistan and much sought after, Salam encountered 'intellectual loneliness' - an idea that was to define his life's work. "The move turned out to be unfortunate," writes Nigel Calder, a British science writer who has followed Salam over the years. "He spent three troubled years there before professional frustration drove him back to England ... reluctantly he became part of the 'brain drain' that robs Asia of its talent that it so urgently needs. But he resolved to do all he could to save other young men from the 'cruel choice' between homeland and profession." [2] SPEED READ - 'Salam's influence on society was second only to Einstein's' - Legacy includes International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste - Brain drain continues despite Salam’s efforts Speaking with young Samir Hoodbhoy, an accomplished innovator-entrepreneur and one of the visionaries behind FAST – a leading computer science school in Pakistan – in 1965, Salam commented: "If you wish to begin a career in Pakistan, there must be a critical mass of contemporaries to sustain your efforts." [3] Salam, the statesman His return to Imperial College, London, resulted in the most productive years of his life as a scientist and as Salam, the statesman. In 1960, he was appointed science advisor to the president of Pakistan where he laid the foundations of a number of scientific institutions, including space and atomic energy commissions. In 1974, he founded the International Nathiagali Summer College - an annual meeting of young Pakistani scientists and leading international scientific figures in picturesque northern Pakistan - as a way to reduce the 'isolation' of his countrymen. He was elected the youngest fellow of the prestigious Royal Society and founded the theoretical physics department at the Imperial College. He was also appointed scientific secretary to the Atoms of Peace Conference and served as one of the 'wise men' entrusted by the United Nations to guide the application of science and technology to fight poverty. Salam's contributions as a scientist form the basis of the idea of ‘Grand Unification’ and the ‘Standard Model’ in particle physics today. Crowning achievement in Trieste Salam's crowning achievement, however, was the setting up of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, in 1964. He envisioned the ICTP as the first department of a broader UN University and as a “meeting place for leading theoreticians from the East and the West." [2] During the cold war, Trieste was the place where scientists from the developing world flocked to "plug into the current excitement in physics, sample the latest ideas ... meet informally with world leaders in the subject." [2] Over the years, ICTP has hosted over 100,000 scientists from the developing world – more than 6,000 visitors from 122 countries in 2005 alone – and has contributed tremendously towards arresting the brain drain towards the West. While at ICTP, Salam laid the foundation of the Third World Academy of Sciences to support scientists in the developing world. He was also instrumental in proposing the Islamic Science Foundation that never really saw the light of day. "Salam has contributed more towards the development of science in the developing world than any other Nobel laureate (or another individual)," says Atta ur Rahman, Pakistan’s former science minister. [4] While much has been achieved since Salam took on the cause of science in the developing world, considerable gaps remain. With the exception of a handful of countries - the BRICS and a couple more - quality science is still a luxury in the developing world and science remains an elite activity. Consequently, the brain drain stays unabated. Today, more than ever before, the world needs visionary scientists of influence who can carry forward Salam's unfinished business. Athar Osama is a science policy researcher and consultant. A graduate of RAND Graduate School for Public Policy in Santa Monica, CA, he is also the founder of the Pakistan Innovation Foundation and editor of Muslim-Science.Com. References 1] Nidhal Guessoum, Islam's Quantum Question [2] Nigel Calder, A Man of Science - Abdus Salam, in Ideals and Realities: Selected Essay of Abdus Salam by A. Salam and C. H. Lai. [3] Interview with Samir Hoodbhoy [4] Interview with Atta ur Rahman

The Uber Battle How D.C.’s atrocious, corrupt, and outdated taxicab cartel lived to see another day. Image courtesy Uber. The name of the company—Uber—is twitch-inducing smug. The service it provides, in 13 cities (14 if you count the Hamptons as separate from New York), makes life easier for reasonably affluent people. You download a smartphone app, call a luxury sedan to your doorstep, and pay double the rate of a taxi. When Time’s Andrew Ferguson needed a framing device for his story about the capital’s young elites, he came up with “Uber-Washington.”. Yes, sure, I’ve enjoyed watching Lincoln Navigators pull up to dive bars and reveal a cargo of scruffy twentysomethings. But I’ve been rooting for Uber because the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia taxi regime is atrocious, and atrocious service-providers sometimes get scared straight by competition. That theory was tested on Monday. The city’s Taxicab Commission despises Uber, makes a strong case that it’s illegal, and has conducted several stings against it. So the San Francisco-based company had been negotiating with D.C. councilwoman Mary Cheh—who represents the most wealthy, least black ward in the city—to settle the legal questions in a comprehensive taxi reform bill. Cheh’s bill would drag taxis into the latter part of the 20st century, with mandatory credit-card swipers, GPS tracking, and uniform lights. (In D.C., it’s not unheard of to try and flag down a cab with its light on and then notice that there’s already a passenger inside.) As far as Cheh could tell, she had solved Uber’s problems. Her amendment legalized the service, and mandated that “minimum fare for sedan-class vehicles shall be five times the drop rate for taxicabs.” The luxury service was safe—right up until 3 p.m. yesterday, when the Uber website alerted users to the D.C. council’s plan, informing them that a five-times-the-cab-price rule would effectively stop the rollout of a new, low-cost UberX service. The Internet—the favorite hangout of Uber-Washington—brimmed with white-hot anger. National tech sites piled on. “Uber cannot catch a break in Washington, DC,” reported TechCrunch. The names and emails of D.C. councilmembers were posted on Uber’s site, on Facebook, on Change.org. As far as Uber-Washington could tell, the Jell-O-brained D.C. council was going to do the bidding of cab companies and kill a great service. On Tuesday morning, I climbed aboard the gentrifier’s preferred mode of transportation—the lightweight bicycle—and pedaled downhill to the John A. Wilson Building, where Uber’s fate would be decided.* No yuppies or Uber-ers had made it down. The sidewalk was occupied by more than a hundred cab drivers, hoisting signs of identical size and font with alternating slogans. “Bill 19-630 Is Approval of Apartheid.” “Why Does the City Council Want to Destroy Taxidrivers’ Livelihood?” “Don’t Forget the Elections Are Coming Up Soon.” Uber had to fail. “They take away our business,” said Abdulwahab Abdulwahab, a Yemeni-American who has been driving a cab for 28 years. If the city let Uber operate without more regulations, it would hurt him. If the city forced him to put a GPS in his car, that would hurt him, too, by centralizing something he preferred to keep independent. The first fight was easier to win, as long as Uber was forced to choke down the price hike. Larry Frankel, the lion-maned chairman of the Dominion of Cab Drivers, worked through the crowd explaining the stakes. “Uber can’t have this pass,” he told Abdulwahab. “If this passes, it’ll be the second urban area to undo [Uber]. The suggestion came from Las Vegas. What they did was raise the price to $40, minimum. Instead, what Cheh did was raise it five times.” This was almost true. In Las Vegas, Uber got classified as a livery business. The city already had laws about the minimum rates for those businesses, and—almost as importantly—the city didn’t have all of the same problems with cabs. Only around a third of D.C. cabs have credit-card machines. D.C. cabs can’t pick up passengers from the airports in Virginia. They’re protected, in other words, by bad laws.* Cheh had thought she was fixing that, but she’d been blindsided. Before the meeting, unbeknownst to most of the protesters outside, Cheh buckled and withdrew her Uber amendment. “I’d talked to Uber many, many times,” she told reporters. She’d found out about the “save Uber” campaign when an aide saw it online and alerted her. “What I will do is introduce legislation when we’re back in September,” said Cheh with a shrug. “We have this recess in July and August, and that could be interesting. Right now, they’re operating illegally. That’s how the Taxicab Commission was treating them. We were trying to exempt them from regulation and let them operate.” Taxi drivers, many of them African immigrants with halting English, filed into the council room, not far from Taxicab Commission’s glowering chairman Ron Linton. They watched the Uber amendment be withdrawn. Not what they wanted—the price rule would have been nice—but at least Uber wasn’t getting a special favor. And right then Jack Evans, a councilman from another largely white ward, asked to read his own amendment. He’d introduced it alongside Tommy Wells, David Catania, and Michael Brown—the latter two at-large members of the council, the former two both white. Evans wanted to add language so that “a business that uses a mobile phone application to provide service shall be exempt from regulation.” That would have been a get-out-of-jail-free card for Uber. The cabbies bristled and groaned. Now, finally, the councilmembers who represented the less white parts of D.C. could take their whacks. Marion Barry, the former mayor who now represents the city’s poorest, most black ward, asked the council to think of the people behind the wheels. “What this company is doing is having a great dent on D.C. taxi drivers,” Barry intoned, with maximum pathos. “They have no retirement, no benefits, no health care.” He’d met with some of the drivers outside, and he felt their pain. “I'm a friend of the taxi industry. They've been political friends of mine. They're outraged.” Over to Vincent Orange, the black council at-large member who’d also rallied protesters outside. “I’m pretty appalled,” he said.* “Someone’s in California, he didn’t like the bill that was cut out with Councilmember Cheh, and then all of a sudden, all these emails came in, but he’s not from the District of Columbia! I don’t know who this person is.” Cheh had actually been negotiating with the D.C. branch of Uber, but the “California” point was packed with meaning. Orange didn’t think his colleagues were thinking of real Washingtonians. But that didn’t fly. The other councilmember who represents the poorer parts of D.C., east of the Anacostia River, is Yvette Alexander. She didn’t back the Uber waiver, necessarily. But she understood why she was hearing so much from constituents about a pricey, snobby service. “Uber does come east of the river without hesitation,” said Alexander. “When somebody calls Uber, they are there. For the fact that Uber does come out, I really do support them. For the members of the taxicab industry that is in this chamber, you really need to take note.” That didn’t quiet down the “nay” votes. The Uber amendment, in whatever form, was going to be withdrawn. The council was going to keep the status quo, with Uber operating in the shadow of the law, as it voted to put more demands on cabs. But the pro-Uber caucus used its opportunity to explain why low standards and stupid regulations had made this business model vulnerable. “We should be embracing more of this technology,” said Catania. “If regulation meant high quality service at a good value, then D.C. would have the best service in the nation. The fact that people are willing to pay more for Uber should tell you something.” Correction, July 10, 2012: This article originally misstated the name of the John A. Wilson Building, as well as the title of D.C. councilmember Vincent Orange. The article also incorrectly stated that D.C. cabs cannot take passengers to Virginia airports.

Coady going to Washington to discuss bulb recycling By Curtis Riggs | August 27, 2008 Anticipated glut of Chinese CFLs at issue CAREFREE – Town Councilman Bob Coady will be headed to Washington, D.C. next month to discuss Carefree’s florescent bulb recycling program with a Texas congressman who is concerned about the importation of CFL bulbs from China. Coady will meet with Congressman Ted Poe from Texas’ Second District on Sept. 11 to talk about the program he has had in place for four years. Poe is concerned about the lack of an overall plan to properly dispose of the 600 million CFL bulbs that will be imported from China in coming years. Adding to Poe’s concern about recycling the CFLs is the Chinese bulbs do not last nearly as long as the current brand name CFL bulbs and the scheduled ban of normal incandescent light bulbs in the U.S. by 2012. “I have been asked to talk about Carefree’s involvement in starting a grassroots program to address mercury pollution and the protection of the environment,” Coady said. Carefree’s bulb recycling program began four years ago when a machine that properly disposes of tube florescent lights was purchased. Late last year a new machine was obtained to properly recycle the new CFL bulbs, which use less energy and last much longer than regular light bulbs. Coady estimates 5,000 florescent bulbs have been properly disposed of through the Carefree recycling program in that time. If florescent and CFL bulbs are not properly disposed of, they can cause mercury poisoning of soil and water tables. One florescent or CFL bulb can contaminate 33,000 liters of water. Coady credits Dave Karsten’s Ace Hardware store in Carefree for helping to make the program such a success. People can drop off their CFL and tube florescent bulbs there seven days a week for later recycling. Coady said many people also bring the bulbs in on regular recycling days in Carefree. He estimates 100 bulbs a week are recycled properly because of Carefree’s efforts. “The number of bulbs we have taken in is significant,” Coady said. Coady was asked to meet with Poe because of his relationship with the president of Community Environment Alliance Ed Domanico, maker of the two bulb machines Carefree owns. When talking about the glut of new Chinese CFLs coming into the U.S. in the next several years, Coady said 600 million new bulbs could end up in landfills nationwide in the next five to 10 years if programs are not implemented to dispose of them properly. Courtesy photo

December 12, 2006 in City Animal abuse cases increase The Morgan Hills neighbors didn’t know why the stray black Labrador was limping a few weeks ago. Neither did the animal control officer who caught it. It wasn’t until the small dog’s X-rays came back from the vet that it was discovered Morgan, as he was named, had been shot in the leg two months ago and left in pain, said Patricia Simonet with Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service. Veterinarians amputated his right front leg Thursday, and the dog is looking for a home. Morgan’s abuse is just one of 161 animal cruelty cases that SCRAPS has investigated so far this year, more than double the 69 cases last year. Though the number seems staggering, the increase may be due to better community awareness of animals, said director Nancy Hill. “I think the community has a higher level of awareness that we need to take better care of our animals,” Hill said. “In the past, people tended not to report abuse as much, but people are thinking more about pets and pets’ rights.” This year, officers at SCRAPS saw many instances of abuse. In March, officers rescued a dog buried under a concrete slab in somebody’s backyard. That month also saw the rescue of 18 cats living in squalor in an RV. In August, a man was found to have kicked and slapped a dog repeatedly, causing the animal to yelp. In each of those cases, a neighbor called SCRAPS, and animal control officers responded. “More people are calling because they know an agency will respond and there will be a result,” Hill said. High-profile animal abuse stories often pique people’s concerns about their neighbor’s animals, said Gail Mackie, executive director of SpokAnimal CARE. A September report of a Bonner County home housing 500 cats caused an increase in pet awareness in Spokane, Mackie said. “Any time we have more of the outlandish cases, it brings to the forefront that something can be done in those situations,” she said. “People feel more comfortable calling.” SpokAnimal is also seeing an increase in abuse reports. In 2005, more than 1,200 cases were investigated. This year has so far seen 1,416. SCRAPS animal protection officers are special deputies of the sheriff’s office, and have the ability to write misdemeanor citations for abuse, Hill said. However, many of the reported cases of abuse are difficult to prove in court, so SCRAPS often tries to educate pet owners about how to care for pets. “Education is our first goal, but if it’s ignored, then we may charge them,” Hill said. As for Morgan, the black lab was recovering Monday after the amputation. Even if the dog were trespassing when he was shot, it is still considered cruelty to leave the animal in pain. Hill said it would be better to contact SCRAPS to have the animal picked up, rather than resorting to gunfire. “The problem with those kind of incidents is that it’s not the animal’s fault, it’s the owner’s problem,” she said. “The animal pays the ultimate price.”

The findings suggest that British families are changing the way that they eat in the wake of the revelations. And the effect is positive, it is said, as families have put more than 13.5 tonnes of processed food in the bin. The scandals - which broke four months ago when The Food Safety Authority of Ireland discovered horse DNA in burgers on sale in major supermarkets chains - have combined with much publicised research into the health risks to create in attitude, it is believed. One in four Britons, 24 per cent, now says that they have cut down on the amount of processed food they eat, according to a survey of more than 2,000 adults. As the tide of public opinion turns there has been a fresh food renaissance which is being driven by the health concerns. The typical family are set to spend £1,762 on fresh food in the coming. The survey, carried out by Tefal to launch the first ever Fresh Week, found that nearly a third, 30 per cent, say that they were put off processed meals by the recent horsemeat revelations. Just fewer than 2.8 million people say that they have thrown out processed meals as a result. As the TV dinners go in the rubbish bin, traditional English fruit and vegetables are making a comeback at the dinner table, with British apples, garden peas, cauliflower and cabbage all growing in popularity. Since the news which rocked the industry British Apples are 20 per cent more popular, the penchant for garden peas and cauliflower has grown by 19 per cent, and cabbage by 18 per cent. The figures were released to mark the start of Fresh Week today, which is aimed at encouraging Britain to exchange convenience and ready-made meals for fresh unprocessed food for a week. Actress and mother Fay Ripley, an ambassador for the campaign, said: ." Processed food is widely believed to have a damaging effect on people’s health, and earlier this year the government threatened to place legal curbs on the amount of salt, fat and sugar in the products. In January the industry faced further criticism when a number of supermarket chains and suppliers were found to be selling horsemeat, and many chains withdrew the items from sale. Despite the move toward fresh food, Child nutritionist Dr Charlotte Evans has warned the scandal could have had a negative impact on tens of thousands of pupils who reject school dinners in favour of unhealthy packed lunches. Diana Henry Victoria Moore Susy Atkins John Whaite Deliciously Ella Bee Wilson Xanthe Clay

Last week,. Suddenly, international attention has turned to this tiny faith group, whose estimated population ranges from 300,000 worldwide to 700,000 in northern Iraq alone. Western media outlets have focused on the idiosyncrasies of the faith, like adherents' supposed fear of lettuce and pumpkins, and refusal to wear the color blue. And supposedly, the religion is syncretic, meaning that it incorporates elements of many different faith traditions, including Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism. Philip Kreyenbroek, a professor at Germany's University of Göttingen who has written several books on Yazidis, says these characterizations of the religion are only partially true. "They have very ancient roots," he noted. Although it's difficult to determine exactly how old the religion is, scholars believe the Yazidis were one of the Indo-European peoples who lived in ancient Mesopotamia. Around 3,000 B.C.E, when other groups migrated east to India and Iran, the ancestors of the Yazidis stayed and settled in the area now known as Kurdistan. Although "they believe in an absolute god who is responsible for everything that happens in the world, good or evil," which in some ways resembles the Abrahamic conception of God, their faith is actually rooted in an older tradition: "Basically what they believe is in a much older divinity called Mithras," an ancient Indian and Iranian god, Kreyenbroek said. Yazidis also believe the world is guarded by seven angels, the most important being Melek Taus, or the peacock angel. Starting in the 11th century, these ancient beliefs took on new forms. "Some say these messages became less comprehensible in the 11th century, when a Sufi mystic sought solitude in the mountains [of northern Iraq]. He was so charismatic that all these people who followed non-Islamic religions followed him," Kreyenbroek explained. This was Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir, a practitioner of mystical Islam, whom the Yazidis venerate as a holy figure. The Yazidis began "using Islamic words and concepts to refer to their ancient beliefs," Kreyenbroek said. They also practice rites like baptism in water, which may or may not be drawn from cultural encounters with early Christians. But these overlaps are largely superficial—Muslims don't consider Yazidis to be a "people of the book," or one of the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The Yazidis also hold many beliefs that aren't found in Abrahamic religions. "They shouldn't wear the color blue," said Kreyenbroek. "Some people say they can’t eat fish, a lot of people say they can’t eat lettuce, and some people say pumpkins as well.” But most people don't follow these rules strictly, he added—they're mostly limited to priests, or perhaps more orthodox Yazidis like those who live in Sinjar. The origins of these beliefs are unclear. “The word for lettuce, for instance, in Arabic—the Kurds don’t speak Arabic, naturally—but when they speak Arabic, they don’t differentiate sounds, and the word for cursing, which is taboo, and the word for lettuce, are very similar. I’ve always suspected that this has something to do with it,” Kreyenbroek said. Others have linked this belief to the 13th-century execution of a Yazidi saint, who was pummeled with lettuce. (It's worth noting that Kreyenbroek is one of the few scholars in the world who studies the Yazidis, but he still went out of his way to say that a lot is unknown about the faith. Even as the ancient religion faces extinction, we still don't understand it very well.) Since Yazidis are not a "people of the book," "they [are] not protected in Islamic law," Kreyenbroek pointed out. And "they [are] thought to be devil worshipers—and there is nothing as horrible and unclean as devil worshipers." This is why ISIS is so intent on eliminating the group—and why the international community is so concerned about a genocide against them, said Birgül Açıkyıldız Şengül, a professor at Turkey's Artuklu University who studies Yazidi art and culture. "It’s not the same as ... with the Christians or the Shia Muslims," she said. The Yazidis "are not considered a religion." That's not to say that ISIS isn't targeting Iraq's Christians and majority Shiite Muslims. Other religious minorities in northern Iraq, including the Kaka'is, a sister religion of Yazidism, and the Shabak, a cultural group that has some distinctive religious qualities, are also in the jihadist group's crosshairs. Instead of fleeing, some of these groups have chosen a different path: hiding. "Kaka'is are sometimes saying they're Shiites," Kreyenbroek said. "They believe, as the Jewish people believe, that there’s a historic tendency to persecute them." But the persecution of Yazidis in recent weeks has been particularly acute, and it's in keeping with the sect's long history. In fact, suffering has become an integral part of the group's self-narrative. "The Yazidis say they were persecuted 72 times in the past, but we don’t know. We don’t have sources until the 13th century," Şengül said. “The Yazidis became very strong in the 13th century … in northern Iraq to northern Mesopotamia, Turkish-tied Iran, and even Syria. At the same time Islam was becoming very strong in the region, so Muslim leaders started to persecute them.” During the Ottoman era, the Yazidis faced pressure to convert to Islam, according to one 19th-century text. Some believe this is the origin of the symbolic number "72," representing the number of massacres committed by Ottoman caliphs. But again, as Şengül said, "we don't know." In the 20th century, under former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the Yazidis faced killings and relocations because they are ethnic Kurds. "[They] were forced to take part in the war against Iran, and they were always sent to the front—they were the first to die," Kreyenbroek said. Over time, these experiences have driven Yazidis to separate themselves from Iraq's Muslim communities. "This memory, the bad memories of being persecuted by Muslim leaders—it’s a reaction, a way of protecting themselves," Şengül said. "They believe, as the Jewish people believe, that there’s a historic tendency to persecute them," Kreyenbroek observed. This instinct to self-isolate may have contributed to the dire situation in Sinjar. "The Kurdish area in the Middle East is a mountainous area in general—and mountains protect people when they are attacked by outsiders," Şengül said. When faced with the threat of death at the hands of ISIS, the Yazidis fled to higher ground. "It's very difficult for people to reinvent their religion without the physical presence of sanctuaries." Now they're also fleeing from other areas of northern Iraq. In addition to the Sinjar region, many live around Dohuk, in Kurdistan. Şengül said her town in Turkey, Mardin, is seeing an influx of refugees, and others are heading to Syria. She's heard of at least three children who died on the Turkish border, waiting to cross from Iraq. These forced migrations may further alter Yazidi identity. "They identify very, very strongly with the land," Kreyenbroek said. "The Valley of Lalish, that’s the heart of the Yazidi. It’s on the borderline of the Kurdish autonomous region, and [it's the location of] the sanctuaries of the various holy people, of the angels." Here, "they’ve always felt secure. Sinjar, until recently, was talking about the possibility of establishing a Yazidi republic. I thought this was nonsense," he added, "but among the diaspora, it was quite seriously discussed." The Yazidi population is heavily concentrated in Iraq, but there is a something of a diaspora in other countries—although it's impossible to know how big it is. Kreyenbroek spoke of communities in Germany, Turkey, and Holland; roughly 200 families live in the United States, half of them in Nebraska. Recently, Yazidis in Armenia tried to establish themselves as an independent, non-Kurdish ethnic group for political reasons—Armenians are still wary of Kurdish Muslims because of memories of the ethnic cleansing of Armenians that took place during World War I. Even so, among Yazidis, "there is a very close link with the land," said Kreyenbroek. "It's very difficult for people to give it up, to."

Manuel Pellegrini hopes CSKA Moscow have learned a lesson concerning last season’s racial abuse of Yaya Touré after Manchester City were again drawn against the Russian club in the Champions League group stages. During City’s 2-1 win at the Khimki Arena in October 2013, Touré suffered monkey chants. Pellegrini said: “I hope for Moscow it is a lesson that they learn about that and hope that we don’t have any problems, not only with Yaya. I remember what happened last year. The pitch was also a problem, we played on a very bad pitch.” Touré said at the time: “I’m not just disappointed, I’m furious. I’m very disappointed about what those fans have done.” Regarding a draw that also placed City with Bayern Munich for a third time in four years, Pellgrini said: It is a similar group to last year and it is a difficult group, especially with Roma. We must play and try to qualify, Some groups are less difficult, but that is not a problem. “I don’t know if there is a better system than they use now for the Champions League. One team can be more difficult than another one, but when we were at Málaga, everybody wanted to play us, but we won the group. I reached a semi-final with Villarreal and a quarter-final with Málaga, so it shows that not always the biggest teams can do well. “We don’t just think about the Champions League. We want to win the Premier League this year, too, but we also want to improve in Europe. The seeding is not a problem. It is the rules of the draw.” The manager also confirmed that Micah Richards, Scott Sinclair and John Guidetti can leave. “We will see what happens with them in the next 48 hours,” he said. “They know they are not part of the squad because we have enough players with the 22 players I chose for this year.”

Taxi drivers hope to bring central London to a standstill on Wednesday as the row over the Uber app escalates. Thousands of black cab and licensed taxi drivers are expected to block roads, causing travel chaos. The row has flared over the introduction of Uber, an app designed by a US company which allows customers to book and track vehicles. Unions and groups representing taxi drivers say the system enables users to contact unlicensed drivers who have not been subjected to safety checks. Black cab operators are launching private prosecutions against minicab drivers who use Uber, but drivers are also taking direct action. Garrett Emmerson, chief operating officer for surface transport at Transport for London, said: "A number of taxi drivers are set to cause pointless disruption for Londoners over a legal issue that is down to the courts to decide upon. TfL will work with the Metropolitan police to do all we can to keep central London moving. However, given the scale of the likely disruption, we would advise drivers to avoid the area. There are lots of other ways to get around, including the Tube or walking, and we're asking cyclists to take extra care given the large number of vehicles expected to be involved." Steve Garelick, of the GMB union, said: "GMB members consider that the introduction of unregulated taxi drivers, ending criminal records checks, ending vehicle checks and ending local licensing, will be a hammer blow to the taxi and private hire industry. There must be an obligation to keep trade to the groups who are paying for legitimate licences in their district. We have campaigned on uninsured and unlicensed operators and drivers for many years and we cannot ignore the fact that at present many individuals are slipping through the net." Mick Cash, acting general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, said: "The attack on the professional licensed taxi trade by a combination of mayor Boris Johnson and wealthy global corporations seeking to maximise profits is nothing short of a scandal. We would urge the people of London to back their cabbies 100%. "There will be serious disruption on Wednesday, but that will be nothing compared to the disruption and dangers of allowing our licensed taxis to be driven from our streets through a combination of ignorance and?)

Phishing, cybersquatting scum could ruin gTLD fun for biz Expert: Firms can't judge the risk until ICANN approves the domains Businesses face extra costs and risks because of new internet domains, but the publication of a list of newly applied-for domains will not allow them to calculate those risks precisely, an expert has said. Last summer directors at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is the body that oversees the identification of websites, ICANN published the full list of potential new generic 'top-level' domains (gTLDs) that have been applied for in its first round of applications. ICANN has previously said it wanted to "unleash the global human imagination" by extending the number of top level domains. There are 1,930 applications, many from individual organisations or trade bodies, including Apple, Google and Microsoft. The list of domains applied for includes .bbc, .bank, .google and .london, with many firms competing for ownership of single domains. More domains, more cybersquatters However, concerns have been raised that increasing the number of domains will only increase the number of potential web addresses that could be obtained by 'cybersquatters'. Cybersquatting occurs when people buy domain names with the purpose of selling them on to trade mark owners for a profit. Trade mark law expert Gillian Anderson of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that businesses may not be able to account for the threat of cybersquatting until new gTLDs are actually approved. "The main challenge brand owners face following the full list of newly applied gTLDs being released is identifying those gTLDs which will prove to be key to their businesses," Anderson said. "For example, KPMG has applied for the gTLD .KPMG, however as gTLD applications have been filed for .accountant and .accountants, it is likely that KPMG would also look to secure domain names such as KPMG.accountant and KPMG.accountants." "Similarly we have seen several car manufacturers apply for gTLDs which incorporate their brands while .car and .cars has also been applied for," she said. "As the gTLDs have not yet been approved it is difficult to predict the exact cost and potential harm the new gTLDs may bring to brand owners. However it is unquestionable that brand owners will incur additional costs in securing defensive registrations once the gTLDs become live," Anderson said. "At the launch ICANN was firmly of the opinion that the evaluation process and the pre- and post-delegation rights-protection mechanisms would prevent any harm being caused to brand owners; time will tell whether that is accurate or not." Anderson added that companies should also be aware of potential new 'internationalised domain names' (IDNs) that could be registered in languages other than English, such as Chinese. "The IDNs are of particular interest because they open up the internet in a way we have never seen before," she said. "Some of the IDNs applied for include transliterations of .com and .net. While a Hong Kong based company has applied for the Chinese equivalent of .trademark. If approved, brand owners must ensure that they have a strategy for securing key registrations in order to avoid infringement of its brands taking place." The applications that have been submitted are now subject to an initial evaluation by ICANN. The review will check whether the applied-for domain is "so similar to others that it would cause user confusion" and "whether the applied-for gTLD string might adversely affect [domain name system] security or stability," among other things. As part of the evaluation process new gTLD applicants must also set out how they would police "abusive registrations and other activities that affect the legal rights of others" as well as how they would "implement safeguards" to reduce the likelihood of "phishing or pharming". Disputes ICANN said it will evaluate the applications it has received in batches and that companies would have approximately seven months to raise any objections to the establishment of any of the new gTLDs proposed. It has established a dispute resolution framework that enables objections to be raised. ICANN must then review the potential new gTLDs that have been applied for by more than one organisation and determine which organisation should own the contested domains. Thirteen applications were made for ownership of .app, which is the most contested of any of the new potential gTLDs. Work has also begun on the establishment of a new 'trade mark clearinghouse' which would allow registries operating any new gTLDs to check whether proposed new domain names would interfere with the rights of others. Trade mark owners will also have access to the database of information in order to assert their rights. Earlier this year the European Banking Authority (EBA) expressed its concern to ICANN over aspects of the proposed gTLDs expansion. It asked ICANN to withdraw the availability of .bank as a potential suffix. Andrea Enria, chair of the EBA, said the regulator was concerned that consumers could be exposed to financial scams as a result of .bank and .fin being made available. She added that consumers could think that websites registered with .bank or .fin domains have been endorsed by financial regulators when they may not be. "The potential for consumers of financial services to over-rely on what might be perceived as 'regulatory endorsement' of the companies operating under such TLDs is immense, and the risk for new types of fraud and 'phishing' can be enormous," Enria said. "The same can be said of the danger for confusion regarding the operation of legitimate websites by 'true' financial institutions and regulated entities. This could lead to the need for them to establish costly and complex legal or commercial initiatives in order to safeguard their trademarks from frauds and abuses," she said. Enria had also identified potential regulatory issues because websites rooted at .bank would "not [be] linked to a specific country, to a specific supervisor or to a specific regulatory framework." Out-Law.com is part of international law firm Pinsent Masons. Sponsored: Dummies Guide: Flash Array Deployment

A mother-of-two from Chorley has been found guilty of benefit fraud totalling more than £6,000. Jennifer Marie Barrow, 28, of Rothwell Road, Anderton, pleaded not guilty at Preston Magistrates’ Court of three charges of dishonestly obtaining £6,600 in income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit. Magistrates heard she had legitimately claimed the benefits as an unemployed single parent, however she failed to notify the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Chorley Council when her partner moved in with her and that he was in full-time work. She was found guilty following a trial and was sentenced to a 12-month community order. She was ordered to complete 240 hours of unpaid work and to pay court costs of £150 and a victim surcharge of £60. Steps are now being taken to recover the overpayment. Coun Graham Dunn, who is responsible for benefits at Chorley Council, said: “This case came to light when anonymous information was received by the DWP that Miss Barrow’s partner was living with her and that he was in work. “As the allegation also included housing and council tax benefits, the DWP invited Chorley Council investigators to join the investigation and prosecution of Miss Barrow. “This is another excellent example of the council and the DWP working together to bring the full extent of fraud to the court’s attention. “I would urge anyone who has information about benefit fraud to contact the fraud hotline on 0800 328 6340. It’s free and it’s confidential.”

U DuPont Building Innovations will unveil the new colour palette of DuPont Corian techno-surface and the new application area of exterior cladding at the Big 5 show opening tomorrow in Dubai. The event will run from November 5 to 8 Tameer Holding Investment said the construction work at its Dh1.7 billion ($462.7 million) 'Elite Residence' project in Dubai Marina was on track with Cladtech International commencing the cladding work on the 91-storey tower. A le Exterior cladding for Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building being developed by Emaar Properties, a global property developer, is now complete. The tower has accomplished a world record for the highest installation of an aluminium and gl Damac Properties, a leading property developer in the region, said that cladding work has begun on its twin tower development at DIFC– Park Towers. The development is Damac Properties’ only project at the rapidly expanding financial centre The demand for ready mixed concrete, reinforcing steel and stone cladding is set to more than double next year as civil building construction projects peak across the Arabian Gulf but tail off in 2010, according to the latest market analysis. Setting new global records in practical engineering and architecture, Burj Dubai, the iconic tower developed by Emaar Properties, has recorded another global first with the installation of glass panels at a height of 512 metres. Arabian A Multiforms has won Dh250-million ($68m) cladding contract for King Abdullah University of Science & Technology campus. Multiforms, the Dubai-based architectural façade specialist and associate company of Emaar Industries & Investme Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building being developed by Emaar Properties, has completed 50 per cent of its cladding work The cladding work is being undertaken on an accelerated schedule by Arabian Aluminium Company, the company said i

Grubb & Ellis adds 20 brokers from local firm Grubb & Ellis has acquired most of Commercial Realty Advisers’ 20 brokers, including its six founders. The CRA group will become the Grubb & Ellis commercial real estate office in San Diego. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Until now, Grubb & Ellis had been affiliated with BRE Commercial in the San Diego market. Grubb & Ellis is based in Orange County. Commercial Realty Advisers was founded in San Diego in 2007 as a boutique commercial brokerage. Founders joining Grubb & Ellis as senior vice presidents are Gregory Albertini, Brent Bohlken, Jeffrey Chasan, Steve Dok, Brandon Keith and Robert Vallera. The brokerage focuses on commercial real estate, ranging from apartments to office and industrial properties. MIKE FREEMAN Carlsbad’s ViaSat receives $21.5 million military pact ViaSat, a Carlsbad satellite equipment maker, received a $21.5 million order for modem terminals from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command office in San Diego. The terminals provide greater situational awareness in combat for the Navy, Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and for U.S. defense partners by gathering information into a digital view of the battlefield. The secure, high capacity, jam resistant wireless system connects users with both digital data and digital voice communications. Delivery is expected to begin in March 2011 and continue through February 2012. MIKE FREEMAN Video networking startup Avaak raises $10 million Avaak, a San Diego startup working on low-power wireless video networking technology, said it has raised $10 million in second round of venture capital funding. The round was led by Qualcomm, which joined Avaak’s existing investors Trinity Ventures, InterWest Partners and Leapfrog Ventures. Avaak’s technology aims to allow consumers to monitor their homes or businesses via the Internet and access a live video feed through mobile devices. The system features a network of small, battery-powered cameras. MIKE FREEMAN Genomatica adds $15 million in venture capital funding San Diego-based Genomatica, a green technology company, said it has raised $15 million in a third round of venture capital funding. The round was led by TPG Biotech, a new investor to the company. Existing investors, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Alloy Ventures, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson also participated. The company has raised a total of $38.5 million since it was founded in 2000. Genomatica will use the money to build a demonstration plant to make industrial chemicals through a renewable technique, and to develop a bigger pipeline of other petrochemical alternatives. The company uses the fermentation of sugar and microbes to make a chemical used in the production of plastics, textiles, solvents and auto parts. The process aims to replace petroleum-based chemicals in the production process. MIKE FREEMAN Connect with The San Diego Union-Tribune - - - - -

UCSD's Rand Steiger among composers honored by American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters has named its 2011 winners, and they include Rand Steiger, UCSD faculty member and composer-in-residence at the Calit2 (the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology). Steiger, one of 15 composers who received recognition, received the Walter Hinrichsen Award, which allows for the publication of one of his works by the C.F. Peters Corporation. Among the other winners were Karim Al-Zand (Rice University), David Dzubay (Indiana University), Steven Mackey (Princeton University) and Lewis Spratlan (winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Music and formerly of Amherst College). “I’m humbled and very grateful to receive this award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and look forward to discussions that will follow with C.F. Peters about publication,” Steiger said. It is as yet undetermined which piece Peters will publish. Steiger is at work on a series of pieces for solo instruments and electronics for ICE (the International Contemporary Ensemble) as well as a large work for the New York and Chicago-based new music collective. His “A Menacing Plume,” inspired by the most recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, is scheduled to be premiered by the Talea at New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall on March 24. Connect with The San Diego Union-Tribune - - - - -

! stop SecKit protection --> AUSTIN – The University of Texas System Board of Regents unanimously approved the appointment of Admiral William H. McRaven, currently commander of the United States Special Operations Command, as chancellor of The University of Texas System, effective Jan. 5, 2015. Regents named McRaven sole finalist for the prestigious position at a meeting last month. By state law, regents must wait 21 days after naming a finalist before making an official appointment. McRaven will succeed Chancellor Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., who will continue to serve as the System’s chief executive officer until January 2015. Cigarroa will return to UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, where he served as president for nearly a decade, to head the institution’s pediatric transplant program. A four-star admiral, McRaven will retire from the U.S. Navy later this month, wrapping up a distinguished 37-year career. McRaven has garnered international respect for his strategic leadership, discipline, intellect and diplomacy. In his current role with U.S. Special Operations Command, he oversees a 67,000-person, $10 billion operation and plays one of the nation’s premier roles in keeping the country safe. McRaven took the opportunity to thank the regents for selecting him as the UT System’s next chancellor during the board’s open session. He also expressed his gratitude to the Texas Legislature, UT alumni and others for their support and pledged to build a strong relationship with all those who care deeply about UT institutions. “Great universities demand the best from their students, their faculty, their researchers and their administrators. Great universities not only teach — they educate, they build leaders, they create thinkers and doers — across every aspect of life,” McRaven said. “This university system should be known for producing tomorrow’s leaders in every field of endeavor.” McRaven praised Cigarroa’s groundbreaking Framework for Advancing Excellence and called the tenets of the document “universal and timeless.” He emphasized the notion that teaching and scholarly research go hand in hand — both demanding an unwavering pursuit of excellence. “He said we must never settle for mediocrity; instead we must follow a continued trajectory toward greatness,” McRaven said of Cigarroa’s Framework. “I like that term – greatness. When people around Texas, around the nation and around the world think of the UT System, greatness should be the first word that comes to mind.” Regents Chairman Paul Foster said he and his fellow board members are honored that McRaven has accepted the position to lead the UT System, choosing a role that continues to serve the public good after decades of service to his country. Foster and Vice Chairmen Steve Hicks and Gene Powell made up the search committee that recommended McRaven to the full board. “We are honored that Adm. McRaven has chosen The University of Texas System as the next step in an impressive career and we are thrilled to welcome this distinguished UT alumnus back home,” Foster said. “Adm. McRaven is the consummate leader, a champion of freedom and a true diplomat. I know my fellow regents share my view that the future is boundless for the UT System and we believe we have found the right person to lead us in the ambitious endeavors already under way and those yet to.

When Margie and Reggie Cole chose November 11, 2006 as their wedding day, they faced several challenges, not the least of which was time. Margie didn’t start planning the wedding, didn’t even book the reception hall, until two months before the chosen date. Fortunately, Margie had confidence in her ability to get organized, plan the wedding and pull things together in a hurry. And she got great news when she learned that Chez Josef in Agawam, where she wanted to have her reception, had Nov. 11 open. “I think they were as surprised as we were,” Margie says with a laugh. “For me, it was a sign that this was all meant to be.” Still, Margie and Reggie faced the not-uncommon challenge of trying to create an event at which all their diverse family members and friends would feel included. Margie, who is Puerto Rican, was particularly concerned about her Spanish-speaking parents. “We decided to have a translator at the service, mainly for my parents,” she explains. “They’re up in age, and I had decided that I wanted both of them to escort me down the aisle. I really wanted them to enjoy the service and to get the whole message we were trying to put across.” Margie chose a family member to translate the service, as well as the blessings and toasts at the reception. It was also important to the new couple to comfortably integrate the two families and groups of friends. “I didn’t want anyone to feel left out. I really wanted people to mingle,” Margie says. So she and Reggie arranged the seating at the reception so that each table comprised half from her side and half from his. She did the same with the wedding party. When it came to the menu, Margie again wanted to be inclusive. She decided to offer three choices of entrée, for example. “We had chicken and prime rib, but I wanted something that I knew my family, really my parents, would like,” she recalled. “I said something to the people at Chez Josef about wishing we could have pernil [a Puerto Rican recipe for pork shoulder]. They said, ‘You can!’ I was so happy because pernil is a tradition; we have it at all our family festivities.” Margie also added a Spanish touch to the dessert offerings: “We had a flan for dessert. Actually, we had the wedding cake as the main dessert, but I asked to have a separate station set up for the flan and coffee, because we usually have the flan with coffee. It was beautiful.” Reggie, who is African-American, was very supportive of his bride’s efforts to include aspects of her culture in the wedding, Margie says. While he let her make a lot of the decisions about food and flowers, he had some thoughts about the music. “Reggie’s really old-school,” Margie says. “He loves jazz. And he didn’t want my parents to be uncomfortable, you know, with some of the newer music. So he asked the DJ to play soft jazz through the dinner. Then we had a mix of newer music, Spanish music and music from when my father was young. It worked very well.” Reggie also introduced Margie to an African-American wedding custom that she’d never heard about. “He said we had to do ‘jumping of the broom,’” Margie recalls. “We had a beautifully decorated broom and we, well, jumped over it. It symbolizes that we are united as one, jumping into the future together, into a whole new beginning.” It also served as a way for Reggie to honor his culture. “It meant a lot to him,” Margie says. Looking back on their wedding, Margie says she couldn’t have asked for a happier, smoother, more inclusive event. She feels that the two families and their many friends became closer that day, and that her effort to honor their respective cultures was truly appreciated. “The only thing is, it went by so quickly,” Margie says. “You do all that planning and then it’s over in a blink of an eye. But it was wonderful. We were just blown away at how perfect it was.”

Fighting The Battle Of The Bulge Ernie Ward, DVM. Courtesy of Dr. Ernie Ward Around 2004, every time Ernie Ward, DVM, found himself among a group of fellow lecturers at a veterinary conference, he’d bring up the same topic: Had anybody noticed how many overweight animals they were seeing in their practices? The question always drew a few jokes. “Oh, look, the skinny vegetarian wants to talk about fat cats,” Dr. Ward recalls—but nobody ever seemed to take the question seriously, despite Ward’s persistence. It might have gone nowhere, except that one day a friend issued a challenge: Quit talking about obese pets and do something about it. So he did. In 2005, Ward, now 44, founded the nonprofit Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. Among other things, the organization helped launch an annual pet-obesity awareness day, and an annual survey that this year suggested that more than half of American dogs and cats were overweight or obese. This data has helped focus national attention on the problem, including high-profile coverage in such media outlets as The Wall Street Journal. “There are just a handful of people who have no additional training beyond veterinary school, who don’t pursue specialized clinical research, who still become hugely impactful in veterinary medicine,” says Steve Budsberg, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVS. Budsberg, director of clinical research at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine, is the colleague who gave Ward the put-up-or-shut-up challenge. “I can think of five, and Ernie’s one of them. … He has really accomplished a lot in his career that most people just wouldn’t, or couldn’t, go out and do.” Secrets to Success Ward’s professional bio is an exercise in high-achievement multi-tasking. Since 1993, a year after graduating from veterinary school at the University of Georgia, he’s owned Seaside Animal Care hospital in Calabash, N.C. He’s a regular on the national and international lecture circuit, named 2004 Speaker of the Year by the North American Veterinary Conference. He is the “house vet” on the Rachael Ray talk show; published a 2010 book, “Chow Hounds,” about pet obesity; and runs a practice-management consulting business on the side. And, oh, yeah, he’s a certified personal trainer and Ironman triathlete, and is raising two young daughters with his wife, Laura, who manages their animal hospital. But Ward says it’s not because he works so much longer or harder than anybody else—just more efficiently and always with tightly focused goals in mind. “Some people think if you’re working efficiently, you don’t have to do much, but it’s the exact opposite. The more efficient you are, the more you can do,” Ward says. “When I’m at work, we’re all full throttle. But the flipside is, we’ve decided what our priorities are. We’ve figured out what we can give up.” In veterinary school, Ward might not have been the student you would have picked to achieve such success. His former professor Budsberg jokingly remembers that Ward “sometimes came to class.” Perhaps that was because he was busy being a rock star—Ward moonlighted as a member of The Violets, which charted a minor hit with “I Hate the Grateful Dead” in 1991. At the same time, however, Budsberg says, Ward was an “extremely bright, energetic” student, a natural showman and leader. Price of Success After graduation and a brief stint working at someone else’s clinic in Georgia, a mentor helped Ward find a great deal on a shuttered clinic in an idyllic, beachside North Carolina town. But there were strings attached; the previous clinic had a horrible reputation. The first day it opened, Ward took in just $62. To establish the business, Ward found himself working around the clock. The hard work paid off, but at a price. Ward never surfed, wrote or exercised—all things he loves. One day in 1999, his hospital thriving, Ward could barely force himself out of bed to go to work. “So we decided we needed to rethink everything,” Ward says. He and his wife gave themselves a year to turn it around. Almost immediately, they hired another vet, realizing they’d reached the limit of what a one-veterinarian practice could accomplish. Next, they rethought appointment flow. Ward had never understood linear appointments; it made much more sense to stagger them and maximize efficiency. Then, they attacked recordkeeping, a time-consuming task that Ward hated. Rather than end his days doing dictation, Ward scheduled an extra five minutes at the end of each appointment to review exam findings while a tech recorded them. The move eliminated 95 percent of his recordkeeping duties. Don’t Forget the Techs Finally, Ward recommitted to staff training. Even in veterinary school, Ward had never understood why some veterinarians wouldn’t let techs do things like trim nails or clean ears. “I’d always hear (veterinarians say) ‘I can do it better and faster.’ And I’d think, well, why can’t you just teach them?” With time-saving practices in place, Ward found time not only to pursue passions like running and cycling, but to reach new professional goals. He became a sought-after speaker and consultant, often on practice management. Local and regional media appearances led to higher-profile gigs on the Animal Planet cable channel and then with Rachael Ray. And, of course, he had time to focus on pet obesity. Originally, Ward envisioned his anti-pet-obesity organization as a vehicle to simply raise awareness of the pain, stress and illness excess weight causes. But now, he says, it’s time to take it from awareness to action. Now that weight issues have caught owners’ attention, veterinarians must step in to provide solutions or risk having other industries take the lead, he says. Beyond that, Ward sees a real opportunity to affect human health as well. Ward recently opened a companion business, Doggone Healthy, a pet spa/boutique with nutritional supplements, doggie exercise programs and weight loss strategies. But eventually, he hopes for crossover between his worlds as a personal trainer and as a veterinarian, such as a facility promoting parallel weight loss with dogs and humans. As he talks about these plans, you can hear his excitement. He envisions petcentric programs targeting childhood obesity—“We need to get kids to pick up the leash and put down the video games”—and promoting overall health. What’s good for pets, he believes, is good for humans. Why not solve two problems at once? That would be the efficient way to go about it.

Class of 1995 William "Bill" Chambers Bill Chambers was born on December 13, 1930 in Lynchburg, Virginia. He began his basketball career at Lynchburg’s E.C. Glass High School, where in his senior year, he was center on an undefeated (22-0) State Championship Team. Chambers went on to play basketball at the College of William & Mary, where he also earned his BS in Physical Education. At William & Mary, he was All-State, All-Southern Conference and Helms All-American. In his senior year, Chambers set a NCAA single game rebound record of 51 rebounds against the University of Virginia. Also that year, he was selected as Virginia’s Outstanding Collegiate Basketball Player. After graduating from William & Mary, Chambers began his coaching career at Warwick High School. After one year at Warwick, he interrupted his coaching career to try out for the Minneapolis Lakers. When he was cut by the Lakers, Chambers resumed his coaching at Newport News High School. His three years at Newport News produced a 67-8 win-loss record and two State Championship teams in 1956 and 1957. The Peninsula Sports Club honored Chambers in 1957 as their Man of the Year in Sports. Chambers returned to his alma mater in Williamsburg as Head basketball coach in 1957. He coached at William & Mary for nine years, six of those years being winning seasons. After leaving William & Mary, Chambers had a successful business career in the sporting goods industry with sales and management positions with Converse and Russell Athletic before retiring in August 1994. Chambers’ playing and coaching accomplishments have been recognized by his induction into the College of William & Mary Athletic Hall of Fame in 1973 and the Lynchburg Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1998. ( To Sports Inductees List )

Remember that Walden’s Title IV Code is 025042. Education EdD, University of Memphis; MBA, Lincoln University; BHS, University of Missouri at Columbia Research Interests Health professional job satisfaction and stability; patient satisfaction; healthcare process and quality improvement; international healthcare services development; healthcare facility planning and staffing; international health policy Background Dr. Dockins, a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, has spent more than 25 years working in U.S. and international health systems as a senior executive. His international experiences include work within the health sector in Southern Asia (India) and the Middle East. While serving as a health system leader, he has been responsible for a number of domestic and international hospital development projects and building programs valued in excess of $1 billion. He joined Walden’s faculty in 2008, serving as a PhD KAM mentor in the College of Health Sciences, and he also teaches health policy. He continues to serve the government of Saudi Arabia as executive director of administrative services at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. © 2015 Walden University

Time for Travellers to be recognised as an ethnic minority Opinion: Perfectly nice liberal people who wouldn’t dream of making racist remarks about, say, black people, will routinely make disparaging remarks about Travellers Travellers and supporters protesting outside the Dáil last year. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill / THE IRISH TIMES We’re sitting in a country hotel on the way back from a day in Knock. The owner comes over to our group to welcome us, asks how we’re getting on. We’re a group of eight women, mostly Travellers. They’re surprised, pleased: it’s not their usual experience. One recalls how she couldn’t get a cup of coffee at a Traveller wedding because the hotel had ruled that no hot drinks would be served that day. Another talks about her experience in her local shop: she walks in, there’s a queue of people waiting to be served, but immediately, a staff member approaches her, says “can I help you?” She knows that this isn’t an expression of concern, but of suspicion. Small things, you might think, but not for Travellers, whose lives are daily corroded by the contempt so many of their fellow citizens feel for them. Or as Brigid Quilligan, director of the Irish Traveller Movement, told a recent Oireachtas Committee , “. . .we still experience discrimination and prejudice in every area of life on a daily basis. People justify racism by stating we bring it on ourselves. This is what the general Irish population thinks about us and we know this. We feel the hate, as do our children.” Refuse servicePeople who aren’t Irish wonder – how do settled people even know that someone’s a Traveller? But they do and odds are, many will refuse service/won’t book a Traveller wedding/will campaign to make sure Travellers don’t move near them. And yet tell a settled person that Travellers’ big issue is the fight to be recognised as an ethnic minority, and they’re in denial. As new Minister for Children, Charlie Flanagan, said last month: “I believe that Travellers are Irish like the rest of us.” He rejects the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality’s historic recommendation in April that it is “unsustainable” for the State to reject the ethnicity of Travellers. He doesn’t seem to understand that Travellers are both Irish and Travellers, an indigenous ethnic minority. Racist remarksPrejudice against Travellers is the last “acceptable prejudice” in Ireland. Perfectly nice liberal people who wouldn’t dream of making racist remarks about, say, black people, vociferous in their support of gay marriage, will routinely make jokes and disparaging remarks about Travellers. Traveller and human rights groups hope that acknowledging Irish Travellers as an ethnic minority will start to change this. Travellers meet all the current international definitions of ethnicity – they have a shared history, culture and traditions, including a nomadic way of life. (That’s the Government’s own definition of the Traveller community in its equal status legislation.) Extended family is central to most Traveller lives; that’s why Travellers seek “culturally appropriate accommodation”, whether that’s grouped housing or halting sites. “Extended family” means something far different to Travellers than to settled Irish people: it means living together, supporting each other, collective identity. There’s also a yearning for nomadism, long after the freedom to travel has been largely denied. A mural called “Happiness”, painted by children in a Traveller resource centre in south Dublin, says something about their dreams – it shows an Irish dancer, a Jack Russell, a rainbow, a girl on a unicorn holding a mobile phone, a boy shoeing a horse, a fairy castle. At a session in the centre discussing Traveller lives, a young Traveller sings songs of the road, children report they’ve been told not to talk Cant – the Travellers’ language – in school, older women reminisce fondly about nights by the campfire. Travellers are both different and the same: most “country people” – Travellers’ term for settled people – might not get it, might wish it weren’t so, just as Northern Protestants, Catholics might wish the other community weren’t there. But they are here: if Travellers could be willed out of existence, the “itinerant settlement” policy of the 1960s-1980s would have done so by now. If Travellers weren’t different, their existence wouldn’t be an issue. How would it help if the Government did formally recognise Travellers as an ethnic group? It would provide more protection under international human rights law, and place value on a group so Irish society might see Travellers more positively. It could help to reverse the internalised oppression that may explain why male suicide rates are nearly seven times that of the settled community. It could help the Traveller community tackle the violence provoked by a minority that threatens them all. RecognitionThe Government will be in Geneva next month accounting for its record on civil and political rights to the UN Human Rights committee. It has been asked by a cross-party Dáil committee and civil society groups to recognise Traveller ethnicity without delay. Travellers are an ethnic minority – it’s time the Government agreed. And it would bring them credit if they did it before July. Journalist Frances O’Rourke is chairwoman of Southside Travellers in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. Breda O’Brien is on leave Don't have an account? Sign Up

Live updates Foodbank use trebles in Calendar region, says study New figures show the number of people using foodbanks in our region has trebled in the last year. The Trussell Trust blame stagnating wages and an increase to the cost of living. New foodbank for West Leeds A new foodbank in West Leeds has been established with support from local councillors. Councillors Janet Harper, Jim McKenna and Alison Lowe have donated £1000 from their MICE fund to the Leeds West Foodbank. An additional £300 has also been provided by Bramley & Stanningley Councillor Ted Hanley. The foodbank, set up in partnership with the Trussell Trust, aims to support people in food crisis in West Leeds, by providing emergency food parcels and signposting people to other areas of support. All food is donated by local people, supermarkets and other businesses. Advertisement Oxfam fears rise in foodbank use is 'tip of the iceberg' Oxfam's Director of UK Poverty, Chris Johnes, has warned that welfare reforms could tip even more people into food poverty: Foodbank success A new project in Lincolnshire aimed at helping people struggling to put food on the table has had success with donations before it has even opened. Organisers at Boston Food Bank, which officially opens on Tuesday at St Christopher's Church, in Fenside, say they've been amazed by the generosity of shoppers at the town's supermarkets with some people donating whole trolley loads of food. New foodbank opens in Rotherham A charity is opening up a food bank in Rotherham today to help struggling families put food on the table. The Trussell Trust helps local churches and communities provide a life line for low incomes families by providing emergency supplies. Its one of 125 run by the charity across the UK..

Feasibility study for new arts center will determine the project's potential A new cultural arts center is proposed for property across from the Gig Harbor YMCA on Harbor hill Drive. Illustration courtesy of BLRB Architects, for Gig Harbor Life. An interior design plan includes the use of plenty of glass walls and ceiling to allow natural light to filer through. Illustration courtesy of BLRB Architects, for Gig Harbor Life. Another view of the proposed $30,000 cultural arts center in Gig Harbor. Illustration courtesy of BLRB Architects, for Gig Harbor Life. The interior would feature an open-air lobby that could double as a dining area. Illustration courtesy of BLRB Architects, for Gig Harbor Life. A floorplan shows the multitude of uses planned for a proposed cultural arts center in Gig Harbor. If a survey shows the public doesn’t favor such a plan, it will be scaled down to try and meet the needs of the community. For color images of the proposed center, go online to and click on the story link. Illustration courtesy of BLRB Architects, for Gig Harbor Life In early 2011, members of Peninsula Art League's (PAL) board of directors were lamenting the lack of a venue in the Gig Harbor area suitable for presenting large-scale art exhibitions. Anne Knapp, then president of PAL, decided it was time to stop complaining and start doing something. She contacted other local artists and arts organizations that were also frustrated by the dearth of spaces for concerts, plays and other performances. That small effort has grown into a movement to build an 80,000-square-foot, $30 million regional arts center in Gig Harbor across Harbor Hill Drive from the YMCA. Dubbed the Gig Harbor Arts Center Alliance (GHACA), the 30-plus member organization has written its bylaws and articles of incorporation, elected a board of directors and filed the legal paperwork to become a 501c3 non-profit. Board members include Jonathan Bill, drama and history teacher at Peninsula High School; Louie Labayan, founder and artistic director of the Gig Harbor Peninsula Symphony Orchestra; Merrie Reardon, musician and founder of the Gig Harbor Peninsula Civic Orchestra; Juleen Murray Shaw, an actress and award-winning producer/director; Mark Hoppen, former Gig Harbor City Administrator and Knapp. BLRB Architects, the firm that designed and built the Gig Harbor Civic Center, donated its services and, after a series of charettes in which each participating organization defined its needs and wants, BLRB presented a design concept for the new arts center. The design includes performance and rehearsal spaces of varying sizes, separate studios for classes and workshops, photography, filmmaking and recording and a large 1,250-seat performance hall that will also be used by Harbor Christian Center for Sunday morning church services. The church has offered to donate 6.5 acres of land for the arts center, in exchange for leasing space on Sundays. "It's really exciting," Jonathan Bill, GHACA president, said. "It's a big campus concept that includes all the facilities we discussed. There's usable spaces for every organization, which is really exciting to me — the integration of different arts in one facility and the amazing possibilities for collaboration." Reardon agreed. "The arts center will pull all the creative resources of the community together in one location. It will provide a place for all the creative artists in the greater Gig Harbor area to come together and share their work," she said. It will be a source of community pride and community identification, Labayan added. "It will be a regional center that will be a model for arts initiatives. It will be a huge jewel in Gig Harbor's crown." PAL has felt the need for a suitable space for art shows and workshops for years, and has been stockpiling funds in hopes of someday purchasing a building downtown. Both Reardon and Labayan also have personal knowledge of the need for performance spaces. "It was really difficult to find a good place for our symphony orchestra to perform," Labayan said. "Either the acoustics weren't good, or there was no piano or the lighting was terrible. There really was no place that was dedicated to performances. This will provide a focus on artistic performance within the community and will encourage the growth of the arts in the entire area." Reardon's Civic Orchestra currently has to stage its concerts at Peninsula High School. The new arts center "would provide a place for our community orchestra to perform the three concerts each year that we're currently performing at PHS." she said. The arts center concept "has been well-planned to provide multi-useful spaces for local artists, visiting entertainment and the community at large," Knapp said. "It will also serve as the long-desired conference center." The facility will be located on 11 acres of land in Gig Harbor North, near the YMCA. In addition to the 6.5 acres donated by HCC, an adjacent property owned by Olympic Property Group has been identified as a potential site for a new elementary school. If the school is built, it's likely that the arts center and the school would share parking space, Knapp said. The anticipated price tag for the 80,000-square-foot facility is about $30 million, according to Hoppen, He mentioned several other visionary projects that have been built in recent years. "We have a YMCA, a Boys and Girls Club, a major history museum, three National Historic Registry-eligible parks and a great Sehmel Homestead Park. So why shouldn't we also have a cultural centerpiece? I think we all deserve it — including our young people." Where the money will come from to build and sustain an arts center is a major consideration. Hoppen spoke recently with Gerry Johnson of Pacifica Law Group about forming a Public Facilities District to manage the on-going obligations of such a facility. "Gerry thinks such an entity can be developed, and offered his firm's legal services pro bono to help in that effort," he said. Coincidentally, Hoppen added, Johnson's great aunt was Lucy Goodman, one Gig Harbor's first and most beloved schoolteachers. But long before the question of a capital campaign is tackled, the very first step in the process is a feasibility study to determine the economic viability of the project. The study, which will cost approximately $50,000, also will answer questions related to the economic impact on the area, including the number of jobs it could create. "The feasibility study is essential," Labayan said. "It will let us know in advance if this whole idea is doable or not. As much as the arts groups want it, the community also has to want it and they have to be willing to support it. In order for the arts — and an arts center — to be sustainable, we need to have the support of the people." If the research findings show a lack of support, "then we re-design an appropriately sized facility according to the data from the study," Hoppen said. On the other hand, however, GHACA board members and the arts groups are hopeful that the study "will show that this facility and the small businesses it encourages foster new ways to live, work and play in Gig Harbor," Hoppen said. "It will truly become a cultural center and an economic driver for our community," Knapp said. Added Bill, "It would dramatically change art education in this area and give young artists new avenues for developing their talents. I think it has the potential to be the best thing this community could do for itself." Currently, GHACA board members are raising funds to pay for the feasibility study. To contribute to the effort, contact Hoppen at (253) 279-2415. Need Help? Call us at 1-877-304-7764. Monday-Friday: 5am-6pm / Saturday: 5am-8pm / Sunday: 4am-11am

miles off the coast and covering about 30 acres. They will produce 1.5 megawatts — enough to power about 1,000 homes. An undersea cable will carry the power to a site slated for the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, and connect to the grid at a substation in Gardner.. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued the 35-year permit to Ocean Power last week. A conditional permit issued for a project in Makah Bay, Wash., was returned in 2007, the agency said. The first buoy is being built by companies in Oregon, including Oregon Ironworks in Clackamas, Vigor Marine in Portland, and American Bridge in Gardiner.. The float goes up and down with the water while the buoy remains relatively stable. That motion is transferred to turning a generator, which produces electricity. The final cost of the project is not determined, Dunleavy said. The company has a $4.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, $420,000 from the Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative, and a state business energy tax credit worth $900,000. Ocean Power previously built the nation's first wave power project off Hawaii, Dunleavy said. It operated two years for the U.S. Navy, before being decommissioned last January. A note to users about commenting changes

Taylor Sarman may serve on new Oregon State board of trustees Taylor Sarman, a 2012 Union High School graduate, is on the verge of making history at Oregon State University. Sarman, a sophomore at the Corvallis school, has been nominated by Gov. John Kitzhaber for an appointment to the new OSU Board of Trustees. Sarman’s appointment now must approved by the State Senate. Sarman would be a voting member of the board and serve as its student representative. “I’m really excited and honored to be nominated by the governor,” Sarman said. The 14-member board of trustees, which will begin operating July 2014, will have the authority to hire the university president, issue bonds and set tuition. Tuition rates will be subject to the oversight of the Higher Education Coordinating Council and the Legislature. OSU President Ed Ray chose to form a board of trustees earlier this summer after the Legislature passed a bill permitting OSU, the University of Oregon and Portland State University to each have a board of trustees. The boards will essentially take on the role of the State Board of Higher Education has now. The state board has overseen all OUS institutions since the early 1930s. The State Senate will vote on whether to confirm Sarman as a member of the OSU Board of Trustees on Sept. 18. Sarman, if confirmed, said he would view himself as voice for all of OSU’s students. “I can tell you it would be a big responsibility to represent 25,000 students,” Sarman said. Holding down the cost of OSU’s tuition would be a major focus of Sarman. “A lot of students are struggling to receive a higher education,” Sarman said. “For a lot of them it is a question of textbooks or food? I would want to maintain a low cost of tuition as much as possible.” He noted that high tuition across the United States is forcing students to take out loans. He noted that many students in the United States graduate from college with a debt of at least $25,000. Sarman wants to do what he can to address this problem by keeping tuition affordable. “I’m committed to making higher education easier to get for my peers,’’ Sarman said. Sarman also wants to help maintain student access to professors by working to keep OSU’s student to faculty ratio as low as it can be. “I want to make sure that students have easy access to their professors so that they can get the help they need,’’ Sarman said. Sarman’s name was submitted to Kitzhaber for consideration by Ray. University presidents can make recommendations for board of trustee members but the governor ultimately decides who will be appointed, pending Senate confirmation. “All of the nominees (for the OSU Board of Trustees) are great leaders,” Sarman said. “It would be an honor for me to work alongside them.” Sarman is active in student government at OSU where he is its executive director of government relations for the Associated Students of OSU. He oversees lobbying efforts on the local, state and federal levels on issues affecting OSU students. Sarman said that serving as a member of the board of trustees would put his time management skills to the test. “That is a golden question.” Sarman said. “Finding the balance between being a student and student leader.” Sarman has a wealth of experience working as a student leader. At Union, Sarman was an active member of its Future Business Leaders of America chapter, holding state and national positions. He served as national FBLA president in 2011-12, a position which required him to travel extensively during his senior year of high school. Sarman credits a mindset gained from growing up in Northeast Oregon with helping him succeed as a student leader at the college level. “The real focus (in Northeast Oregon) of looking out for your neighbor,” he said. “That is the mentality I have taken with me.” Contact Dick Mason at 541-786-5386 or

Learning music at a scenic campsite and sharing experiences with other budding musicians will enable young performers to be inspired anew. The Music Office of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department is now inviting applications for the 2013 Hong Kong Youth Music Camp. A well-received annual summer programme, the camp offers young musicians an opportunity to receive training from renowned overseas and Mainland musicians, take part in intensive orchestral, band and choral training programmes to enhance their musical skills and to share the experience with other budding musicians in a scenic environment. In addition, campers will also perform in two concerts which will be held in July to showcase their achievements. The 2013 Hong Kong Youth Music Camp will be held from July 14 to 20 (Camp A) and from July 21 to 27 (Camp B) at the Lei Yue Mun Park and Holiday Village. Qualified local young musicians aged 10 to 25 are welcome to apply. The fee is $1,110 per person for the seven-day and six-night music camp. Young musicians from overseas and the Mainland are also welcome to join the above music camps but with an extra day added, so that the dates run from July 14 to 21 (Camp A) and from July 21 to 28 (Camp B). The fee for overseas and Mainland campers is $1,670 per person for the eight-day and seven-night music camp. Young musicians may choose to join one of the music groups, which comprise the Symphony Orchestra, the Symphonic Band and the Junior Chinese Orchestra in Camp A, and the Chinese Orchestra, the Youth Choir and the Junior String Orchestra in Camp B. Renowned musicians participating in this year's training programme include the Resident Conductor of Xi'an Conservatory of Music Chinese Orchestra and second prize winner of the 2010 Hong Kong International Conducting Competition for Chinese Music, Mr Xiao Chao; Artistic and Music Director of Cordoba Symphonic Band in Argentina and Chairman of the Social Youth Orchestras and Bands Programme of the Argentina Culture Ministry, Mr Gustavo Fontana; Concertmaster and Associate Conductor of the Coeur d'Alene Symphony Orchestra (United States) and Professor of Violin and Director of String Studies and Conductor of University Symphony Orchestra at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington (United States), Dr Philip Baldwin; Music Director of the Saint Mary's Chamber Orchestra (United States) and Assistant Professor of Violin at Saint Mary's University, Minnesota (United States), Dr Leung Chun-chim; Director of the Choir of King's College in Cambridge (United Kingdom) and Conductor Laureate of the BBC Singers, Mr Stephen Cleobury and Former Director of Taipei Chinese Orchestra and Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Mr Chen Tscheng-hsiung. In addition to learning music in a natural environment, campers can also participate in various recreational activities such as ball games, archery, sports climbing, cycling and mini-golf at the campsite. The day camp, titled "A Super-duper Musical Destination" and costing $59 per person per day, will also be available every Monday to Friday from July 15 to 26 for organisations, families and any other groups of individuals to share delightful musical activities such as visits to the camp choir, band and orchestra rehearsals, mini concerts, musical games and various recreational facilities available in the camp. A concessionary rate of $43 per person for children, full-time students, senior citizens aged 60 and above and people with disabilities is also available. Application forms are available at all Music Office Music Centres and the Music Office's website at and . The deadline for applications for the residential camp is April 1 and the deadline for the day camp is May 20. For enquiries, please call 2582 5334. Ends/Wednesday, March 13, 2013 Issued at HKT 11:06 NNNN

New Jersey state Sen. Michael Doherty today introduced a bill that would divert red light camera revenue from municipalities to a state transportation safety fund. Doherty, R-Warren/Hunterdon/Somerset, said last month he intended to introduce the measure. An outspoken opponent of red light cameras, he says the bill will test claims of local officials that safety -- not revenue -- is "their only interest," according to a statement today from his office. The bill as of today had yet to be assigned a number, according to Doherty's office. Locally, Pohatcong Township uses red-light cameras as part of a state pilot program at Route 22 and St. James Avenue (Route 519). Cameras are no longer in use at Route 22 and New Brunswick Avenue (Route 122). The state had shut down the cameras at that intersection last year because of a dispute with neighboring Greenwich Township over motorists issued tickets for violations in that municipality. The New Jersey Department of Transportation said recently the New Brunswick Avenue cameras will remain off because of planned intersection improvements. The cameras went online in August 2011. As of last November, cameras at the two intersections generated about $1.54 million in revenue for Pohatcong. Pohatcong Mayor James Kern III previously noted that township residents, by referendum last year, voted to keep red light camera enforcement. Regarding directing proceeds from tickets to safety measures, he said he would support using the money to promote safe driving. Doherty says a growing body of evidence suggests that red light cameras cause more accidents and injuries. A report issued in November of 2012 by the Department of Transportation, completed as an annual requirement of the state's five-year red light camera pilot program, contains accident data showing that the total number of accidents, the total number resulting in injuries, and the total cost all increased at intersections after red light cameras were installed, according to Doherty. Doherty maintains an online petition to ban red light cameras in New Jersey at senatenj.com/cameras. As of today, the petition has been signed more than 6,500 times.

[tag: science] ![if !IE]> <![endif]> LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have found that an enzyme is responsible for the death of nerve cells after a stroke and say an experimental drug that dramatically reduced brain damage in mice may also offer hope for humans. Previous attempts to design drugs that can protect the brain from damage after a stroke have had limited success. Dutch and German researchers said on Tuesday that their work showed a potential new approach to treating stroke, which is the most common cardiovascular problem after heart disease and kills an estimated 5.7 million people worldwide each year. In tests on mice, the scientists found that an experimental drug, known as VAS2870 and being developed by the German biotech firm Vasopharm, dramatically reduced brain damage and preserved brain functions, even when given hours after the stroke. "The indications are very strong that the same mechanism may apply for human stroke," said Harald Schmidt from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, who led the study with Christoph Kleinschnitz from Wurzburg University in Germany. Ischaemic stroke is the most common kind of stroke, caused by a clot or other blockage disrupting the flow of blood to the brain. The only currently available treatment is a clot-busting drug called a t-PA, or tissue plasminogen activator, but it must be given within three hours of a stroke and only around five to 10 percent of stroke victims get it. Scientists facing a paucity of effective stroke drugs have been investigating whether tissue damage after stroke may be linked to a mechanism called oxidative stress, in which reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulate within a cell. Previous experimental drugs designed to "soak up" loose ROS after stroke have failed in late-stage clinical trials. A compound from AstraZeneca called NXY-059 proved to be an expensive flop for the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker in 2006. But in this study, published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology journal, Schmidt and Kleinschnitz focused on finding and then trying to block the source of ROS. The enzyme they identified is called NOX4, and by blocking NOX4 with the experimental drug in mice with stroke, they dramatically reduced brain damage. They also found that eliminating the gene linked to NOX4 in mice did not result in any abnormalities, suggesting that "no obvious side-effects are to be expected from a future NOX4 inhibitor drug," they wrote in the study. "This approach focuses on keeping the neurons alive - it preserves the neurons and brain function," Schmidt said in a telephone interview. "We show here that if you identify the real source (of oxidative stress), there is a huge potential benefit if you are then able to inhibit it." Schmidt said the findings may also have implications for other diseases which are assumed to be linked to oxidative stress, such as heart attacks and some cancers, and for other forms of nerve cell degeneration such as in Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease. "We now have a concept that we can follow in all these conditions - identify the source, try to inhibit it, and see if that makes a difference," he said. SOURCE: PLoS Biology, online September 21, 2010.

At first glance, Jackson County's jail expansion project seems irresponsible. The county is making cuts in key services — libraries, the Extension Service, even the Sheriff's Department itself — to balance its budget while spending millions to build new jail beds. But a closer look reveals the jail project as a savvy investment that will pay for itself and then provide a modest but steady income to the county. The county's budget situation has been reported in detail in this newspaper, and county officials have spent considerable time explaining their rationale for avoiding the disasters that threaten other counties after the loss of federal timber subsidies. Jackson County has built up reserves, but that money will not last forever. If the county dips into its rainy-day fund to balance its budget every year, eventually the money will be gone. That's why the Budget Committee decided to cut spending rather than continue to drain the reserves. Those reserves earn interest — about 1.5 percent. But the jail expansion project will return about 10 percent on the investment because the county will rent most of the new jail beds to the federal government to house prisoners awaiting trial in Medford's federal court. Renting 55 of the 60 new beds will generate about $2.2 million a year in income to the county. County Administrator Danny Jordan says the money will pay off the cost of the expansion project in six to seven years. At that point, the bed rental becomes a source of revenue to the county's general fund, which supports county services. The strategy is the same being employed in the county's larger health and human services building project: Use reserve funds to construct a building that will house all the services now scattered in rented space around the county, renting space to state agencies. The rental income will pay off the construction costs and then become an income stream. Yes, the county could have spent the $10 million cost of the jail expansion project on county services instead. Jordan says $10 million would cover the current shortfall in the budget for 17 months. But then the money would be gone, and the budget cuts would have to be made anyway. Rather than put off the inevitable, county leaders decided to invest some reserve funds now — money that will be paid back — in exchange for future income to the general fund. The net income from the jail project will be about $1.5 million a year. That won't solve the county's overall financial problem. But generating income is better than draining the rainy-day fund dry. address Location, ST | website.com

I’m Steve Ember. And I’m Shirley Griffith with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we tell about Hoover Dam. It was the largest and most difficult structure of its kind ever built when work started in nineteen thirty-one. A new bypass bridge that opened this month near the dam is also a wonder of engineering. Our report the states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. Then it crosses the border into Mexico. The Colorado River has always been extremely powerful. The river created the huge Grand Canyon. Beginning thousands of years ago, the violent water cut hundreds of meters deep into the desert floor of Arizona. The power of this river has also-fourr. Davis was a government engineer. He said the dam should be built in an area called Boulder Canyon on the border between the states of Arizona and Nevada. Building the dam would not be easy., desert temperaturesr.. Workers also used more than twenty million kilograms of steel to strengthen the dam’s concrete.. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the dam in September of nineteen thirty-five, although it was not completed until the next year. However, work on the dam continued so as to use the river to produce large amounts of electric power. Today, seventeen huge turbine machines produce hydroelectric power. About one point three million people in Arizona, Nevada and southern California depend on the dam for their electricity. When Hoover Dam was finished, it was the largest and tallest dam in the world. It was also the largest power producer that used water to make electricity. Today this is no longer true. Taller dams, larger dams and a few that produce more power have been created. But Hoover Dam remains an extraordinary example of engineering. In October, two thousand ten, another major engineering effort was completed about five hundred meters south of Hoover Dam. A concrete bridge was built about two hundred seventy-five meters above the Colorado River. The bridge connects Arizona and Nevada. The official name of the Hoover Dam bypass is the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. Mike O’Callaghan was governor of Nevada in the nineteen seventies. Pat Tillman was a football player who quit the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army. He died in Afghanistan in two thousand four. The bridge is about five hundred eighty meters long. It is the largest single-span concrete arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere. Each of the one hundred six cast concrete pieces of the bridge was built in mid-air with the support of huge steel cables. Building took place on both sides of the river. For the curve to be perfect, the two sides had to meet within two and a half centimeters of each other. Before this new bridge, the only way to cross the river in this area was on a small two-lane highway extending across the dam. This road was too small for the amount of traffic in the area. The new bridge keeps the majority of vehicles further away from the dam. So experts hope to protect it from possible attack or harm. The new bridge is also giving visitors to Hoover Dam a fresh view of this important structure. This program was written by Paul Thompson and Dana Demange, who was also the producer. I’m Steve Ember. And I’m Shirley Griffith. You can comment on this program on our website, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

After stepping down from coaching following a successful 13-year tenure at Kennesaw Mountain — a program she launched in 2000 when the school opened — playing tennis and traveling are two of the many things she now gets to do more often. Kern-Honea, who is still teaching physical education at Kennesaw Mountain, is building a retirement home with her husband in St. Augustine, Fla. Kern-Honea’s fellow coaches missed seeing her on the bench over the weekend at the county tournament. But they did recognize her between the first and second sets of Saturday’s championship match with a plaque in appreciation for her support of volleyball in Cobb County. “After 35 years of coaching, the least we can do is honor a fantastic, classy lady and a wonderful coach,” Harrison coach Clay Taylor said. “Kennesaw Mountain has been one of the top programs in the state for years, and that’s because of her. It was the least we can do.” While Kern-Honea is enjoying the more stress-free environment of not coaching, she did say she will be involved with volleyball, “somehow, some way, some day.” “I miss the kids and the wonderful parents,” she said. “Volleyball has provided 35 years of wonderful relationships. That’s the thing that was most important to me. It’s how we treat people and care for other people. “I just felt it was time (to step down). I wanted more time for me to plan for my future.” Kern-Honea retired with a 755-336 career coaching record, with 404 of those wins coming at Kennesaw Mountain. Early in her tenure with the Lady Mustangs, she coached such standouts as Jessica Curtis, who went on to play for Texas, and Jessie Nevitt, who had a stellar career at Cincinnati. The highlight of Kern-Honea’s career came in 2007, when she guided the Lady Mustangs to a 50-7 record and a trip to the Class AAAAA state finals. Future Ohio State middle blocker Mariah Booth was on the roster, along with fellow blocker Lauren Hutchinson, who went on to play for Georgia and Samford. Other highpoints of Kern-Honea’s time at Kennesaw Mountain came when she led the Lady Mustangs to area championships in 2005, ’07 and ’08, and a county championship in 2007. “It was an honor to be able to start a program from the ground level, which I have never done in my career,” said Kern-Honea, whose strength as a coach was defense and team unity. “It was a new check-off on my bucket list to move in and create a new atmosphere and develop something, which was exciting for me.” Kern-Honea has also been known to lend a hand to other coaches in the county who were rebuilding programs. She had advised both Taylor and North Cobb coach James Auld, who have turned their respective programs into perennial powers. “A wise person told me, when you’re new, find someone who knows,” Auld said. “You can get a lot of information from someone else’s experience. What I take from Tonya is that off the floor is more important than on the floor. “She was big in character development and working hard with her kids off the floor, and we’ve been working hard the last eight years to do the same thing.” Other coaches, like former McEachern coach Patty Craven, spoke highly of Kern-Honea’s professionalism. “If she was your opponent, she was thoughtful and considerate of everyone she worked with,” said Craven, who retired in 2009, following a 35-year stint with the Lady Indians. “She was just a professional, and her teams were always nice.”

“Employment fell for the first time in three months after outperforming the national PMI employment numbers for the last two months,” said Don Sabbarese, director of the Econometric Center and professor of economics at Kennesaw State. The Georgia PMI fell to 52.3 for November, while the National PMI increased 0.9 points to 57.3. Despite November’s slight drop, Georgia manufacturing activity continues to grow, but at a slower pace than national manufacturing, according to Sabbarese. “Georgia’s 1.3-point PMI decrease breaks a two-month PMI improvement of 5.1 points, but its strength in new orders and production suggests Georgia manufacturing still remains on a solid growth path,” Sabbarese said. “November’s weak employment numbers may be influenced by seasonal conditions.” Georgia new orders remained strong as 32 percent of respondents reporting higher new orders and 27 percent reporting higher production, according to Sabbarese. New orders for November is 2.7 points above its six-month average of 51.8. This observation is drawn from a survey question that asked respondents about their anticipated production for the next three to six months. The percentage of manufacturers expecting an increase has dropped for the last four months. Other highlights from the November PMI were: ● New orders remain at 54.5, 2.7 points above its six-month average; ● Production up 4.5 points to 54.5, 4.7 points above its six-month average.; ● Employment down 9.1 points to 50, 2.5 points below its six-month average; ● Supplier delivery down 2.3 points to 50, 1.5 points below its six-month average; ● Finished inventory remains at 52.3, 3.6 points above its six-month average; and ● Commodity prices down 15.9 points to 45.5, 9, while a reading below 50 indicates it is contracting.

Counselor Jobs Build Useful Skills Teens and college students who think they’ve outgrown summer camp and need a “real job” may be missing out on the best job of their life. Camps seek teens and young adults for jobs as counselors, activity instructors and lifeguards, even in a down economy. When teenage jobless rates soared to record highs in summer 2009, the American Camp Association (ACA) says that more than 1.2 million people still found jobs at day and overnight camps. Skills for Life Human resource managers value camp counselor experience. Employers know that counselor jobs build life skills, says Cheryl Magen, a former camp director and educational career consultant who is president of ACA’s Keystone Section. “Counselors practice leadership, teambuilding, supervision, mentoring, communication, cooperation, problem-solving, conflict resolution and program development,” says Magen. The counselor experience also promotes healthy emotional and social development by fostering autonomy, according to a 2009 study by University of Connecticut researcher Sara K. Johnson. “Camp is a unique place where counselors can experience responsibility while still feeling the safety net of supportive relationships, and also still have the freedom to explore themselves and their own personalities,” says Johnson. Don’t Apply for Your Child Trish Warriner, director of the Western Family YMCA’s Camp Wahoo day camp in Newark, DE, advises that parents should never contact a camp to inquire about a position for a teen. “We know that teens are in school during the week, so calling and leaving a message for a camp director or sending an e-mail is completely acceptable,” says Warriner. “Unless a teen is out of the country on an extended leave, prospective counselors should always make their own contacts. We need to know that the teen is interested in the position, not that the parent is interested in finding a summer job for the teen.” Sonny Elia, administrative director of the Sixers Camps, says, “The biggest turn off for me is when the parent calls to request an application or get information on a position. I always want to speak to the candidate first.” Warriner adds that parents or school counselors can help teens fill out an application or resume, as long as the teen is responsible for completing it and returning it to the camp. “Professionalism is huge,” says Warriner. “When I receive an application, I look to see that it is complete, in pen and legible. If any of these three key elements are missing, I disregard the application and the candidate. Adding a resume is even better. “If a student has no job experience, but takes the time to create a professional resume that includes school activities and volunteer work, that applicant goes to the top of my pile for interviews.” If applying online, students should always proofread their applications carefully before clicking “Submit.” Apply Early While many traditional camps hire counselors year-round, the season really heats up from January to May, when camps aggressively hire summer staff. Mickey Black, director of Pine Forest Camp, a Poconos overnight camp with winter offices in Jenkintown, PA, says that the younger a prospective applicant, the earlier he should apply. Warriner says that of the approximately 75 counselors she hired for Camp Wahoo’s more than 300 weekly campers in 2009, only eight were under 18, making competition heavy for those coveted positions. Excel Day Camp operates programs in Marlton and Mount Laurel, NJ. Assistant Director Christy Collins starts interviewing teens 16 and older in March and fills all openings by mid-May. To gain experience, teens ages 14 and 15 may enroll in Excel’s unpaid Counselor in Training (CIT) program for a reduced tuition fee. Warriner prefers that would-be counselors contact her in February, and she likes applicants who follow up. “Camp registration begins on Feb. 1, so as soon as the camp guide is published, you know the camp director is gearing up for hiring. But things happen that create ongoing opportunities. It’s never too late to apply,” she says. Because many sports and specialty camps don’t run all summer long, Elia says that counselors often have to work at several camps to fill a summer, making the process more complicated for camps and counselors alike. He says, “We generally take letters of intent for positions at our basketball camps in January and February, and then commitments by March through May.” Experience Pays Salaries for camp staff generally take into account age, experience and expertise. At an overnight camp such as Pine Forest Camp, where room and board is included, seasonal pay ranges from $900 for a student entering college to $1,600 for a college student entering senior year. Lifeguards and specialty counselors often earn extra pay. “Certification in water safety, tennis, small craft, ropes or other activities is always a plus,” says Black. Skills and experience can also earn higher pay at specialty camps such as the Sixers Camps, where Elia says weekly salaries range from $175 to $275. At day camps, compensation for teens sometimes starts at minimum wage, as at Excel Day Camp, where all high school and college students earn $7.25 per hour for a 30 to 40 hour week. In 2009, Warriner says pay rates at Camp Wahoo started at $7.67 for junior staff and $8.17 for senior staff. What Camps Look For Being a camp counselor requires a desire to work with kids, a high energy level and good interpersonal skills. Collins says that she looks for counselors who will be comfortable with children of any age, and equally comfortable speaking with parents at the end of the camp day. Warriner wants counselors who are not afraid to have fun and be silly, even when their prior experience may be limited to babysitting jobs. She likes candidates who have been involved in school sports or extracurricular activities. “Being part of a team of some sort shows that a student understands what it means to be part of a team atmosphere, and that’s a key skill in working with kids and other teens in a camp setting,” she says. Black tells prospective counselors to emphasize their camping background, be ready to adapt to any available job and be persistent. He also cautions that camp directors will check Facebook profiles and phone voicemail greetings to see if their content is wholesome and appropriate. “The best way to get a counselor job is to be enthusiastic — that’s the quality that most impresses a camp director,” says Black. “And there’s no better job for a teenager!” Ellen Warren writes for the American Camp Association Keystone Section, which serves camps and camp families in Pennsylvania and Delaware. I am looking for a job for next summer when I will be 16 and I am hoping to become a camp councilor at a camp for the whole summer. I have had a couple years experience at other camps as a CIT however I would like to spend my entire summer working with kids. I know two languages; English and sign language so hopefully that will help the camp to bring in kids that would not have otherwise been able to come. You might be interested in this list of camps that are included in our SpecialKids Guide, Each camp says it serves students who are deaf or hard of hearing, and therefore might have particular interest in potential counselors who know ASL. -- Tom, MetroKids staff

Union Salary Schedule Ensures State 'Teacher of the Year' Earns Near Bottom In Pay Grosse Pointe science teacher Gary Abud makes $21,000 less than district's average salary Gary Abud is a commodity experts say is in great demand around the country. He's recognized as a highly effective science teacher and was named the 2013-14 Teacher of the Year in Michigan. However, the Grosse Pointe North High School Science teacher ranked 477th out of 595 teachers for salary in his own school district, according to data acquired in a Freedom of Information Act request. Abud made $56,876 in 2012-13, which is about $21,000 less a year than the district's average salary of $77,969 a year. The average teacher salary in Michigan in 2012 was $62,631, according to the Michigan Department of Education. That's because Abud's pay has been based solely on his seniority and education level. House Bill 4625 would change that by making teacher performance the primary factor in determining pay. The idea has been opposed by the Michigan Education Association, which prefers the current system based on seniority and education level. MEA officials didn't respond to requests for comment. Abud said in an email that although teacher attrition was happening at an alarming rate, there is more that can be done to keep teachers happy than just increasing compensation. ." Abud said that he didn't think seniority or advance degrees should be the only factors considered in determining a teacher's effectiveness or compensation. He said performance pay could work if it was structured properly. Abud said he would rather see teachers rated on "objective criteria as the yard stick for student growth" and not endorse any particular assessment. He said educators need to be included in how performance compensation is handled and that they shouldn't be identical for all districts. "Because students achieve growth in a variety of ways that match their learning needs," he said. "Ultimately, effective teaching should be evaluated and compensated using a multi-faceted approach determined at the local level with educators at the decision-making table." The current salary system is not effective and teachers who excel, particularly in high need areas like math and science, should be properly compensated, said Michael Van Beek, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. "Research clearly demonstrates that high-quality teachers can have a huge impact on whether students learn," Van Beek said. "Every school should be clamoring for these types of teachers, and Michigan's best teachers should, therefore, command the highest salaries. Unfortunately, this isn't the case as unions and school boards have historically agreed to ignore teacher effectiveness altogether when determining salaries, favoring instead to pay all teachers the same regardless of how well they teach students. This had led to, among other things, Michigan's best teachers being grossly underpaid." Christian Fenton, deputy superintendent for business and operations for the Grosse Pointe Public School system, said the teacher's contract that was ratified in March would include teacher performance pay. Fenton didn't have the specifics of how performance pay would work and the district hadn't put the contract on its website. Grosse Pointe Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Harwood said in an email that Abud made less than the average teacher's salary because he was a newer teacher and hadn't reached the higher salary steps. "Yet we still attract the very best teachers because they see the potential for growth as well as the non-monetary benefits of working in a high-performing district," Harwood wrote. "In Mr. Abud's shorter period of time in the field of teaching, he has accomplished a great deal. He is an inspiration to many through his learning and instructional methods that meet the individual needs of our students. We as a district are a learning institution and he shows the highest expectations we hold for all of our teaching and support staff." ~~~~~ See also: '

[tag: science] This article contains discussion of several published studies which look at HCV positive individuals with normal ALTs (liver function test) and the relationship between ALT levels and HCV disease progression. Whether or not such individuals should initiate HCV treatment is discussed. Natural History of Hepatitis C Virus Carriers With Persistently Normal Aminotransferase Levels Persico M, Persico E, Rosalba S, Conte S, De Seta M, Coppola L, Palmienteri B, Sasso FC, and Torella R Internal Medicine and Hepatology Unit, II University of Naples, Naples, Italy GASTROENTEROLOGY 2000;118:760-764 Abstract. Introduction: Many subjects with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection have persistently normal aminotransferase (ALT) levels and are considered asymptomatic anti-HCV carriers. Most of these patients have been documented to have some degree of histologically proven chronic liver damage ranging from mild chronic hepatitis to liver cirrhosis (6). HCV genotype distribution and viral load have also been explored, and available data in literature are still conflicting. Several studies suggest that these patients do not benefit from interferon treatment. However, no data are available on the natural history of chronic hepatitis C associated with persistently normal ALT levels that support this observation. In particular, whether there is any progress in grading and staging of chronic hepatitis in these patients is not known. This study was therefore designed to evaluate the natural history of a group of anti-HCV-positive patients with persistently normal ALT levels during 7 years of prospective follow-up to provide further insights into the concept of disease progression. We found that patients with persistently normal ALT levels have chronic hepatitis whose grade of activity does not increase over 5 years of observation. This lends support to the concept that these patients may not benefit from interferon treatment. Discussion: Most patients infected with HCV have different degrees of liver damage that can worsen and lead to liver cirrhosis in 20% of the cases, although subjects with normal liver histology despite ongoing HCV viremia have been documented. However, the long-term natural history of the so-called asymptomatic carriers of HCV is not clear. In general, although ALT levels do not relate to the entity of the liver damage, patients with persistently normal ALT levels have less severe disease. Supporting these data, Mathurin et al. (21) recently showed in a large cohort of patients that those with normal ALT had less severe fibrosis than those with increased ALT. Nevertheless, some reports show the presence of cirrhosis in such patients. Whether these patients should be treated with interferon is still subject to debate (14). This study was designed to evaluate whether HCV-infected subjects with persistently normal ALT levels have any progression of liver damage after 5 years of follow-up. This might be helpful in deciding whether these patients need to be treated with interferon. The prospective follow-up supports the concept that all HCV-positive patients with persistently normal ALT levels have chronic hepatitis with slow progression, or no progression at all, to more severe liver disease (i.e., cirrhosis). The first consequence of this might be the inefficacy of interferon therapy in asymptomatic patients in favor of a wait-and-see approach. This is similar to data from a recent study of interferon treatment in asymptomatic patients14 concluding that such treatment is not effective in these patients. Nevertheless, interferon is suggested as a therapeutic choice for patients with mild disease and flaring ALT. The question is whether and when interferon should be a therapeutic option. In our study, no patients had increases in ALT values after the fourth year of follow-up. Possibly because of the accurate follow-up of such patients, we selected a very strict group of subjects who really represent "asymptomatic" carriers of HCV. Interestingly, patients with increases in ALT levels did not have the worst histological score, suggesting that ALT levels are not a valuable predictor of progression of disease. Most of these subjects( 6,7) treated with interferon did not benefit from the therapy, and the histological score 5 years after the end of interferon treatment showed progression to cirrhosis in 1 patient and mild progression of fibrosis in 2 patients. Only 1 patient responded to therapy; his histology improved from mild chronic hepatitis to minimal liver changes. A recent demonstration of a lower degree of fibrosis in patients with persistently normal ALT activity (21) supports the concept of very slow progression, if any, of liver disease in these subjects. However, whereas Mathurin et al. (21) evaluated progression of liver fibrosis over a virtual period of time of assumed years before biopsy, our data instead strongly demonstrate a lack of progression of disease activity in 2 liver biopsies performed several years apart in a prospective designed study. The diversion of the 2 groups (asymptomatic and symptomatic), at the beginning of the study under the same name, may suggest that the pathological potential of HCV is expressed only in a particular genetic background. The immune system of "asymptomatic HCV carriers" might be able to satisfactorily react to the turnover of the quasi species, avoiding the escape mechanism. The mean value of the apparent duration of the disease (determined only in a small sample and still under observation at the time of second biopsy) was about 10 years. This, added to the 5 years of follow-up, represents a long period of observation to draw conclusions on the natural history of the disease in these patients. Nevertheless, a longer follow-up might be needed. The indifferent HCV genotype distribution together with the lack of association of any particular HCV genotype, with a more or less pronounced disease progression, confirms our and other investigators' observations; and seems to rule out the possibility that the state of asymptomatic carriers of HCV might be mainly determined by a more or less aggressive HCV genotype. Through initial screening of anti-HCV-positive patients, we recognized 2 patients who were HCV RNA negative and who had normal liver histology. These patients never showed positivity for HCV RNA. They might have recovered from the acute disease showing a permanent immunity (anti-HCV positive). One patient who was persistently positive for HCV RNA also had no signs of liver disease at biopsy, thus confirming that true "healthy carriers" of HCV may exist. In conclusion, this study suggests that the majority of asymptomatic carriers of anti-HCV have histological features of very mild chronic hepatitis. In these patients with more than 5 years of observation, the disease does not worsen, supporting the concept that the natural history of chronic hepatitis in this group of subjects is characterized by very slow or no progression at all to more severe grades of evolution. This supports the useless approach with interferon therapy in these patients. Data also show that anti-HCV carriers, along with subjects with chronic hepatitis and HCV healthy carriers, may represent subjects who healed after HCV infection. A very strict follow-up with frequent ALT level determinations is suggested in these patients to recognize subjects only apparently "asymptomatic" for making appropriate therapeutic decisions. (6) Clinical, histological, and virological features of hepatitis C virus carriers with persistently normal or abnormal alanine transaminase levels Puoti C, Magrini A, Stati T, Rigato P, Montagnese F, Rossi P, Aldegheri L and Resta S Hepatology, Vol 26, 1393-1398normal. (14) Interferon Alfa Treatment of HCV RNA Carriers With Persistently Normal Transaminase Levels: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Study Sangiovanni1 A, Morales R, Spinzi GC, Rumi MG, Casiraghi A, Ceriani R, Colombo E, Fossati M, Prada A, Tavani E, and Minoli G HEPATOLOGY, March 1998, p. 853-856, Vol. 27, No. 3 Most patients with serum hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA and persistently normal alanine transaminase (ALT) levels show histological features of mild to moderately active chronic hepatitis. Some cirrhosis has also been reported. To assess whether interferon (IFN) treatment led to long-term HCV suppression in these patients, 31 previously untreated patients (15 men, 16 women; mean age, 44 years) with serum HCV RNA, persistently normal ALT levels on at least four consecutive occasions 2 months apart, and histological features of chronic hepatitis (21 mild activity, 10 moderate activity) were randomized to receive IFN--2a, 3 MU three times a week for 6 months (n = 16), or no treatment (n = 15). All patients were followed up for at least 6 months after treatment ended. HCV RNA was tested by nested reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using 5'-untranslated region complementary primers, quantified by branched-DNA assay, and typed by nested RT-PCR testing for the HCV core region. Treated and untreated patients had similar epidemiological, virological, and histological characteristics. At the end of treatment, serum HCV RNA was still detected in 15 patients (94%) and 14 controls (93%). ALT levels flared up in 10 patients receiving IFN (62%) and in 1 control (62% vs. 7%; P < .005, 2 test). In conclusion, 6 months' treatment with IFN--2a did not eradicate HCV RNA from serum in carriers with persistently normal ALT levels but caused ALT flare-ups in two thirds of them. Until more is known about the natural history of HCV RNA carriers with normal ALT levels, these patients should not be treated with IFN. (21) Slow Progression Rate of Fibrosis in Hepatitis C Virus Patients With Persistently Normal Alanine Transaminase Activity Mathurin P, Moussalli1 J, Cadranel JF, Thibault V, Charlotte F, Dumouche P, Cazier A, Huraux JM, Devergie B, Vidaud M, Opolon P, and Poynard T HEPATOLOGY, March 1998, p. 868-872, Vol. 27, No. 3 In hepatitis C virus (HCV) patients with persistently normal alanine transaminase (ALT), the progression rate of fibrosis is unknown. The aims of this study were: 1) to compare HCV patients with normal ALT (group I) with HCV patients with elevated ALT (group II) matched on independent factors associated with fibrosis; and 2) to assess the progression rate of fibrosis. One hundred two HCV patients were included in each group. Histological lesions were staged using the METAVIR score. We defined fibrosis progression per year as the ratio of the fibrosis stage in METAVIR units to the duration of infection. In group I, ALT values were normal, and lower than in group II (25 vs. 127 IU/L; P < .0001). HCV RNA was present less frequently in group I (66% vs. 97%; P < .0001). There were no significant differences for viremia and genotypes. Histological activities were lower in group I (0.6 vs. 1.38; P < .0001). The stage of fibrosis was lower in group I (0.95 vs. 1.8; P < .001). The median progression rate of fibrosis was lower in group I (0.05 vs. 0.13; P < .001). In group I, after exclusion of negative HCV-RNA patients, the median progression rate of positives remained lower (0.05 vs. 0.13; P < .001). In group I, all cirrhotic patients (n = 3) were heavy drinkers. HCV patients with normal ALT showed weaker histological activity and lower fibrosis scores, and the progression rate of fibrosis was twice as slow as in HCV patients with elevated ALT. In these patients, severe fibrosis was associated with high alcohol consumption.

NSW & ACT Finally, relief from electricity price pain - From: The Daily Telegraph - March 23, 2013 HOUSEHOLDS may soon get a hip-pocket reprieve after the Australian Energy Market Commission tipped power bills to ease substantially. Despite suggesting in its Electricity Price Trends report the projected national average price increase for electricity would be 14 per cent in the current financial year, NSW residents will face a more moderate power price increase of only 2 per cent. "Network prices will continue to drive the total prices paid by households for power but as investment needs are progressively re-assessed this may lead to lower network costs," AEMC chairman John Pierce said. "If current industry trends continue, overall wholesale prices are expected to remain flat and we expect retail costs to flatten as well." Mr Pierce said power prices had also risen over the past year as electricity generators absorbed the impact of the federal government's carbon pricing regime, which began on July 1 last year. The average impact was forecast to be about 9 per cent, although the AEMC said most of the rise in prices was due to network costs - poles and wires infrastructure. Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson yesterday said the peak of network investment was now over and power bills would in future move in line with inflation. "This is good news for energy consumers, who have faced rising electricity costs in the order of 50 per cent over the past three years," he said. "Those price rises had been driven overwhelmingly by the need to upgrade and maintain ageing network infrastructure built as long ago as the 1960s," Mr Ferguson said Mr Pierce said: "We need some bold reforms to create an energy sector that puts reduced demand and fairer prices above increased spending on poles and wires."

The New Hampshire State Library first published Books About New Hampshire in 1946. Updated editions were published in 1955, 1962, 1965 and 1969. In 1979 the New Hampshire Department of Education published New Hampshireiana: Books of New Hampshire 1969-1979. This brochure continued the work begun by the State Library in 1946. Entries in New Hampshireiana were obtained from the "New Hampshire Books" column in each issue of Granite State Libraries. This column, by Eleanor O'Donnell of the State Library, showcases new books about New Hampshire or by New Hampshire authors. The column is still being published in Granite State Libraries. This publication incorporates most of the information in the earlier Books About New Hampshire and New Hampshireiana plus the "New Hampshire Books" column through mid 1999. In editing and organizing the material, I have purposely excluded certain types of books. Listed below are the types of books generally NOT included in this bibliography: Do not consider this guide to be a comprehensive bibliography of all books about New Hampshire. However, it should be helpful to people interested in New Hampshire literature. Books About New Hampshire Compiled by Donna V. Gilbreth Revised & Enlarged 1999 New Hampshire State Library 20 Park Street Concord, NH 03301 November 2000

Community colleges, history suggests, are immune to recessions, as tough job markets send would-be members of the workforce scurrying back into the classroom. One reason for the boom lies in the role of a community college, Chancellor Ron Wright said. While people enroll at four-year colleges in search of degrees, Wright said they choose community colleges because they can get what may amount to a few courses to acquire the skills they need for a job. That's a huge draw in a turbulent economy. Also, Delgado's tuition, even with an increase of about 5 percent, is lower than the tuition at the local state-run four-year schools -- $898 per semester for a full-time Delgado student who is a Louisiana resident, compared with $1,594 at Southern University at New Orleans and $2,076 at University of New Orleans. Delgado, unlike SUNO and UNO, has an open-admissions policy, requiring nothing more than proof of a high school diploma. It does not keep track of whether that factor has attracted students who might have picked the other two schools, Delgado spokeswoman Carol Gniady said. Enrollment has also surged at Nunez Community College, where there were 2,413 students last fall compared with 2,186 just before Katrina struck. "People realize they need to be as skilled as they can be," said Teresa Smith, Nunez's director of institutional advancement. It's a national trend The local trend mirrors what's happening across the country. From 2007 to 2009, the last year for which national numbers are available, enrollment at community colleges rose by nearly 17 percent, said Norma Kent, a senior vice president at the American Association of Community Colleges. The principal reason, she said, is the recession. "When we see a downturn in the economy, people immediately respond by enrolling in community colleges," say Joe May, president of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System. One such person is Nancy Murphy, 58, who has been working in insurance since graduating from high school. When she lost her job in July 2009, she decided to take classes at Delgado to fulfill a 20-year dream of opening a catering company. "I figured, why not?" she said. "It's now or never." After accepting the fact that she would be older than many of her fellow students, Murphy signed up, and has been pleased with her decision. While there are many older students at Delgado, there hasn't been a dramatic surge among this group, Wright and May said. A graph showing age distribution would look like a two-humped camel, May said, with one hump representing students in their late teens and early 20s and the other hump depicting students 30 and older. "The demographics have not changed since the beginning of time," Wright said. Delgado's challenge: Finding room Delgado, which has nine sites, is the largest community college in Louisiana, with nearly one-fourth of the state's community-college students. But growth hasn't always been a blessing. In the fall of 2009, Delgado had no room for about 1,500 prospective students because it didn't have enough teachers and because some buildings still needed repairs after Katrina-related damage. Both problems had been solved by the fall of 2010, but the problem is recurring, although not to the point where anyone has had to be turned away, Gniady said. The school's locations on the north shore and the West Bank are cramped, she said, because they continue to face growing demand. "I am facing challenges trying to accommodate faculty/staff and the growth in programs and services," said Arnel Cosey, Delgado's assistant vice chancellor of student affairs, Making the situation slightly more uncertain are the cuts in the amount of state money Delgado receives -- nearly $7.1 million since July 2008. Federal stimulus money, which provided about $17.1 million to Delgado in the past two fiscal years, will stop July 1. Delgado's operating budget for 2009-10 was nearly $83.5 million. Tuition has risen by about 5 percent, Wright said, but that isn't enough to make up for the losses. Delgado earns money when companies hire school personnel to train their workers. Such contracts can bring in as much as $600,000 per year, Wright said, but it isn't a predictable source of revenue because there's no way to tell from year to year how many companies will come calling. Tough times have required administrators to be frugal -- deferring maintenance, for example -- and to try to anticipate needs before they occur, May said. At Delgado, "there's all kinds of shifting and reshifting to find the highest and best use for space," Gniady said. "We've had to make creative use of space and resources." Merger idea still floating around A widely circulated unsigned memo last spring suggested that Delgado, SUNO and UNO work out an arrangement in which each school would serve a discrete group of students. Though it didn't mention the possibility of merger, it did trigger at least one anti-merger protest, at SUNO. That proposal is not dead, said state Sen. Conrad Appel, R-Metairie. Last year, he was the co-author of a resolution ordering the state Board of Regents to study the schools and devise a plan that will make "optimal use of all available academic, fiscal and physical resources." A report is due March 1. Appel wrote the resolution with state Sen. Ann Duplessis, D-New Orleans, who has since become New Orleans' deputy chief administrative officer. "If the functions were allocated properly and the thing were coordinated properly, then we could deliver the services for our kids that we need to deliver," he said. The goal, Appel said, "would be a super-efficient institution that the whole New Orleans region can be proud of." ••••••• John Pope can be reached at jpope@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3317.

New Jersey Children's Museum to close next month PARAMUS — Conor Rooney manned the steering wheel of a crane, hoisting shoebox-sized Legos from one ship to another. Meanwhile, his twin sister, Maggie, was living out a fairytale in a castle just the right size for a 6-year-old princess. “They know just where to go and what they like,” said Barbara Rooney of Oradell, the twins’ grandmother. It was just another familiar, fun moment for young imaginations at the New Jersey Children’s Museum, a community touchstone for thousands of North Jersey children, parents and grandparents over the past 22 years. But in a few short weeks, the museum will be just a memory, its home building converted for medical use. Related: Valley Hospital buying up string of properties near its Ridgewood site The rainy-day staple will close its doors forever on Sept. 1, owner Anne Sumers announced Friday. Word has spread quickly through social media. John Thomas, of Orange County, N.Y., was headed to Turtleback Zoo with his 3- and 6-year-old daughters when his wife saw the announcement on Facebook. His eldest daughter, Emma, had been asking to visit the museum for the past two weeks, and he kept telling her they would go there again in the winter. Realizing they now had only two weeks’ time, they rerouted and went there Friday. “It’s very hard,” said Thomas. “There’s not a lot of places for kids to play pretend.” The site the museum operates out of was sold in February to Valley Health Systems, which will convert it to its needs, Sumers said. Representatives for Valley could not be reached for comment Friday. The neighborhood has gentrified in the two-plus decades the museum has been open. Body shops and warehouses have been replaced by a counseling center, pediatrician’s office and other health-related businesses. Valley also built Luckow Pavilion, a same-day surgery and cancer center, on the same road as the museum, now called Valley Health Plaza. “We’re saddened on so many levels,” Sumers said in a phone interview. She and her husband, Elliot, opened the museum in March 1992 after visiting a similar, hands-on museum with their two sons, then 2 and 3 years old, in the Philadelphia area. Elliot, a full-time radiologist, would take their boys on trips every Saturday morning to let Anne, a full-time eye surgeon, sleep in. They would view a kitchen through the back of a Chinese restaurant or other activities that would fascinate the boys, engaging them and making them easier to manage. A trip to the Philadelphia-area to visit a water park turned into a day of crying for the boys who were too little for the intense water spray and other activities at the park. So the family ended up at a touch-and-feel museum where they sat in the driver’s seat of a city bus and did messy art projects. “We walked in, and it was just incredible,” Anne said. On the ride home, the couple hatched a plan to bring the concept to North Jersey. They found 15,000 square feet of commercial space on what was then known as Industrial Avenue. The one-story building was perfect for their visitors of pre-school age, it came with 60 parking spaces and had a loading dock to get large items, such as the helicopter and fire truck, inside. On its first day open, the museum had 150 visitors. It now welcomes more than 700,000 people each year, Sumer said. “It been an awesome ride,” she said..”I feel badly we couldn’t keep it open.” Finding a place as well-suited to the museum would be impossible, Sumer said. So beginning Sept. 2 everything in the museum will be sold and the brightly colored dividers throughout the room will be dismantled. They will be the final tenant to leave the building, Sept. 30. The museum was active with first-time and regular visitors Friday, many of whom were not aware of the pending closure. Lori Johnson, of Ridgewood, sat in the music room while her son, Zachary Brown, 3, studied and gently tickled the keys of the piano. The two have been visiting the museum regularly for a year. “I’m very sad,” she said upon learning it would close. “There aren’t a lot of places with unlimited space like this for kids to explore.” Zachary on Friday dressed up like a Native American, went into a cave and made a pirate hat — just a few of his adventures. “There are so many activities,” his mom said. George Mrsich, a fifth grade teacher who lives in Westwood, said he visits the museum two to three times a year. On Friday he brought his wife, godmother and 9-year-old son, Christopher, who has special needs. “The hands-on things are so great for him,” he said. Mrsich was visibly rattled when he learned from staff that the museum would close.

Moulton Neighbourhood Plan update 1:30pm Friday 21st February 2014 By Gina Bebbington 1:30pm Friday 21st February 2014 By Gina Bebbington MOULTON is forging ahead with its neighbourhood plan so that it will be ready when the time is right. The village is one of a number of communities in the UK working on a plan, which sets out what sort of development a neighbourhood wants. If it is passed by a referendum is carries the same weight in the planning process as the local plan. Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWAC) is currently working on its local plan, which the neighbourhood plan will work alongside. Clr Tony Rigby, Moulton Parish Council’s chairman, said: “I want this in a position, certainly by April, that it’s done, so we’ve got a neighbourhood plan ready. “In fact, we could go out to consultation before CWAC gets its act together on the local plan.” Phil Sanders, parish clerk, said he had drawn up a full draft plan ready for a committee to work on. Once the final draft has been produced it will be delivered to every household in the village along with a feedback form. Back

Press Release 14-101 National Science Foundation awards $9.47 million for research on coupled natural and human systems Studies will lead to better understanding of how humans and the environment interact The spread of insects such as mountain pine beetles has devastated forests in the Western U.S. Credit and Larger Version August 20, 2014 Mountain pine beetles, tiny bark beetles the size of grains of rice, have become widespread pests. The insects infest tree after tree in western North America, killing off entire swaths of forests during outbreaks. The effects of climate change and other factors have led to the unprecedented epidemic. Tens of millions of acres of trees have been killed over the past 20 years. Scientist Christopher Bone of the University of Oregon is using the power of computing to inform the response to the mountain pine beetle epidemic, thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) program. The award addresses how humans and the environment interact--and where mountain pine beetles fit into the picture. The grant is one of 11 NSF CNH awards made this year. Total funding for 2014 CNH grants is $9.47 million; the program has made awards nearly continuously since 2001. CNH is co-funded by NSF's Directorates for Biological Sciences (BIO); Geosciences (GEO); and Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences (SBE). "This year's CNH awards address, among other topics, how humans affect and respond to changing environmental conditions in large metropolitan areas, how natural predators combat disease, how noise from a range of sources affects humans and wildlife, and the complex interactions between wind turbines and local environments," says Tom Baerwald, CNH program director for SBE. "The project results will be useful for all of us," says Baerwald, "as we work to maintain and improve environmental quality over the long run." This year's grantees will look at the way in which people deal with environmental processes in a range of settings, including cities, mountains, grasslands and forests. Findings from the CNH projects, scientists believe, will enhance our understanding of, and increase our capabilities to improve, environmental quality and the well-being of people. Among 2014 research subjects are the coupled health and human dynamics of schistosomiasis; feedbacks between local democracy and large-scale biodiversity conservation; bridging communities through mountain sustainability networks; the interactions among economic development, urbanization and forest degradation; drinking water quality and food security in arsenic-affected Southeast Asia; and increasing the resilience of grasslands in the Southern Great Plains. "We now live in a world where wildlife and its habitats are strongly affected by human societies, but where societies still depend on nature--a world of coupled natural and human systems," says Peter Alpert, CNH program director for BIO. "CNH is uniquely devoted to advancing our ability to understand this mutual dependence." The CNH program considers humans and the environment as one interconnected system. Research funded by CNH awards will provide a better understanding of natural processes and cycles and of human behavior and decisions--and how and where they intersect. "Each of the new projects brings together teams of researchers from across the social and natural sciences," says Sarah Ruth, CNH program director for GEO, "to help us better understand how complex systems function, and ultimately, how we might best manage finite environmental resources." CNH is part of NSF's Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (SEES) initiative. Paul Armsworth, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, CNH-Ex: Synergies and Feedbacks Between Local Direct Democracy and Large-Scale Biodiversity Conservation Efforts Jesse Barber, Boise State University, CNH: Sound as an Element in Coupled Natural and Human Systems Christopher Bone, University of Oregon-Eugene, CNH: Forest Governance and Climate Change in Driving Native Insect Outbreaks Hallie Eakin, Arizona State University, CNH: The Dynamics of Multi-Scalar Adaptation in Megacities Julia Klein, Colorado State University, CNH-RCN: Bridging Communities and Scales Through a Global Transdisciplinary Mountain Sustainability Network Armand Kuris, University of California, Santa Barbara, CNH: The Coupled Human Health and Environmental Dynamics of Schistosomiasis Zhulu Lin, North Dakota State University-Fargo, CNH-Ex: A Model for Groundwater Allocation and Management at the Bakken Shale in Western North Dakota Julie Lundquist, University of Colorado Boulder, CNH-Ex: Legal, Economic, and Natural Science Analyses of Wind Plant Impacts and Interactions Julie Silva, University of Maryland, College Park, CNH-Ex: Investigating the Dynamic Intersections Among Economic Development, Urbanization, and Forest Degradation Alexander van Geen, Columbia University, CNH: Competing Demands and Future Vulnerability of Groundwater: Drinking Water Quality and Food Security in Arsenic-Impacted South and Southeast Asia -NSF- Media Contacts Cheryl Dybas, NSF, (703) 292-7734, cdybas@nsf.gov Related WebsitesCNH: Summertime: Hot Time in the City:: Cooking Up Clean Air in Africa:: Studying Nature's Rhythms: Soundscape Ecologists Spawn New Field:: Scientists chart a baby boom--in southwestern Native Americans from 500 to 1300 A.D.:: Eradicating invasive species sometimes threatens endangered ones:: Climate of Genghis Khan's ancient time extends long shadow over Asia of today:: Human Disease Leptospirosis Identified in New Species, the Banded Mongoose, in Africa:: CNH scientists hope to balance woodland expansion and grassland resilience in the Great Plains.Credit and Larger Version A parasitic worm causes schistosomiasis, a disease that threatens people across the globe.Credit and Larger Version CNH grantees will study the human and environmental effects of wind plants.Credit and Larger Version Groundwater allocation at the Bakken Shale in western North Dakota is the subject of a CNH award.Credit and Larger Version Well polluted with arsenic; 100 million people in Southeast Asia are threatened by such wells.Credit and Larger Version

Harold Schneiderman Playground Harold Schneiderman Playground. Schneiderman, owner of over a dozen supermarkets, was known for his work with the Order of Knights of Pythias, a national fraternal organization founded by Justus H. Rathbone in 1864—during the Civil War—to promote “Friendship, Charity, [and] Benevolence.” The Order draws many lessons from the story of the friendship between Damon and Pythias, historical characters who predated the Christian era by four hundred years. They were members of a school founded by Pythagoras, whose goal was the moral uplifting and purification of society. The Order held that the two most excellent acts were “to speak the truth and render benefits to each other.” At the suggestion of President Lincoln, the Order applied to Congress for a Charter, and became the first American Order ever chartered by an Act of Congress. As the District Deputy Grand Chancellor of the Knights of Pythias, Schneiderman served on the Board of the Pythian Summer Camp for City Youth, and was one of the founders of the New York State Women’s Chapter of the Pythian Order. Schneiderman was also known for his involvement with the local Little League. He participated regularly in the Cerebral Palsy Telethon, and contributed money to the Samaritan Village, Daytop Village, and Convenant House. After his death in 1985, the Cross Bay Utopia Lodge Knights of Pythias established the Harold Schneiderman Memorial Fund to continue his charitable work. This playground is jointly operated by Parks and the Board of Education. Acquired by the City of New York through condemnation in 1958, the playground opened as Public School 232 Playground, the Linden Wood School, in 1964. In 1985, it was renamed Linden Wood Playground after the nearby residential development Linden Wood Gardens. Local Law number 96 of 1993, sponsored by councilman Walter Ward, renamed the site Harold Schneiderman Playground in honor of the community activist. The playground was officially re-dedicated in a ceremony in July 1994, which was attended by a crowd of elected officials and local residents including Schneiderman’s wife, Marion. In the spring of 2000, $42,000 of Mayoral funds were spent to renovate the playground. The playground now features new play equipment, asphalt, and safety surfacing, and serves as a place of recreation for the community as well as a tribute to a dedicated community leader. Directions to Harold Schneiderman Playground Harold Schneiderman Playground Weather Facilities Know when to go: View upcoming athletic area usage in Harold Schneiderman Playground

HEALTH: ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS HEALTH: ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS; Consumer Group Challenges Agency Over Sandbox Safety By WARREN E. LEARY, Special to the New York Times Published: September 8, 1988 WASHINGTON, Sept. 7— Children's sandboxes, normally the place of castles, sculptures and imaginary wars, are at the center of an actual battle over what some people charge are dangers lurking in the sand. The Health Research Group, a Washington-based consumers' group with ties to Ralph Nader, has argued for almost two years that there are asbestos-related particles in some play sands on the market and that the particles pose a long-term cancer risk to children. The group is urging a recall or ban on these products. The Consumer Product Safety Commission and the stone industry say there is no convincing evidence that play sand is hazardous, and they see no need for emergency action. The sand in question is the fine, white, powdery variety taken from quarries in coastal areas and sold at toy and hardware stores. Mineral Form at Issue In part, the debate involves what form of the mineral tremolite is present in the sand. Both sides acknowledge that tremolite is a contaminant in some sand; the amount varies greatly from sample to sample, but in most cases the quantities are minute. The consumer group says the tremolite is found in a fibrous form in play sand; thus, its structure is similar to types of asbestos already known to cause lung disease and cancer. Even in small quantities such particles can be a hazard if inhaled because they are not cleared from the lungs and the effects are cumulative. The industry and the safety commission say the tremolite, when present in sand, is in a crystalline form, which they say is safer. The long-running battle has been heating up. Last month the consumer group threatened to sue the commission after it did not formally answer a petition filed by the consumer group more than 20 months ago. The group said this was an unreasonable delay under the law. The commission recently said its staff would prepare a report and present the case to the commission for a decision next month. 'Evidence Doesn't Exist' After months of looking into the issue, spokesmen for the commission said little data existed indicating that play sand posed a health threat and that parents should not be alarmed. ''If we could demonstrate there is a hazard, we would act quickly, particularly because it would involve children,'' said Sandra Eberle, the commission's program manager for chemical hazards. ''But in the minds of our scientific staff, that evidence doesn't exist.'' Ms. Eberle added, ''This is upsetting to us because parents get concerned when they hear about it and we have to spend a lot of time telling people that this is not asbestos in the sand.'' But the Health Research Group said the commission was using technicalities to avoid the issue and accepting industry definitions of asbestos that exclude suspect particles found in some samples. Asbestos Identification Cited Dr. Lynn Silver, a researcher with the consumer group, said tremolite was one of six minerals identified commericially in the rock industry by the term ''asbestos.'' Some scientists believe tremolite particles can cause cancer like other forms of asbestos to which humans are exposed. Dr. Silver said the commission had ''failed in its duty to protect children,'' and added, ''This is a kind of hazard in children that doesn't manifest itself for 20 years, and then it's too late.'' There are many sources of play sand, but no particular ones have been designated as hazardous because no one has surveyed them all. Dr. Silver said the suspect particles were too fine for consumers to detect by sifting. She suggests that parents looking for play sand should opt for coarser varieties, which contain different minerals and are considered safer by some experts. Asbestos is a long, fibrous mineral material once used to insulate buildings, ships and other structures, as well as for making fireproof materials. Inhaled asbestos can cause cancer of the lungs and other organs. No Tremolite Hazard Found Rick Renninger, senior vice president of the National Stone Association, an industry group representing quarry operators, said the crystalline type of tremolite was different from the fibrous form considered as a type of asbestos. Mr. Renninger, a geologist, asserted that there was no evidence indicating that this crystalline form, which he said was not truly asbestos, was related to cancer or any other disease. ''If there was a hazard to tremolite we would have seen asbestos-related disease in the industry, and we haven't,'' Mr. Renninger said. The safety commission said it had samples of play sand tested, and only one was found to contain trace amounts of tremolite asbestos. The crystalline form of tremolite was detected in small amounts in other samples, the commission said, but no human or animal studies demonstrate that this type causes cancer. Ms. Eberle, the commission official responsible for chemical hazards, conceded, however, that this might be because most tremolite cancer studies have been done with the asbestos form and not its crystalline cousin. 'Skull and Crossbones' Label Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, professor of environmental medicine and pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, said his laboratory independently tested play sand bought at local stores and found that ''a substantial fraction'' contained fibers that look and feel like fibers of asbestos. ''If children inhale these fibers they are at risk of getting lung cancer later,'' he said. ''Either this play sand should be banned or labeled with a skull and crossbones.'' The question about play sand arose in 1986 when Mark Germine, a geologist who was also a medical student at the New Jersey Medical School, wrote a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine saying he had found that some bags of commercial play sand containing tremolite asbestos. Health officials in New Jersey and Massachusetts later found traces of asbestos-like fibers in some play sands, which were voluntarily recalled by producers. Dr. Germine, who now is working with the Health Research Group on the play sand issue, subsequently petitioned the safety commission to ban pulverized limestone products, including lawn and garden limestone and consumer gravel products.

Solid. Finance Minister Bill English said the banks had taken action because they were concerned about getting their money back - and he would not rule out a bailout by the Government, saying it would not let the company fall into receivership. He would also not rule out job losses among the workforce of 1200 and mine closures in a future restructure aimed at returning the firm to its core business of coal mining but with much lower overheads. Staff, suppliers and contractors would continue to be paid, he said, but faced two to three months of "unavoidable uncertainty" while the banks, Treasury and the company worked out how to restructure it. Mr English said the Government would not just let Solid Energy collapse and believed it could still be a viable business, but would need restructuring and lower overheads. "The company is in financial distress. We are not going to let the company go ... there are clearly going to be discussions around whether they are carrying too much overhead and which mines are viable and which mines are not." Solid Energy has mines on the West Coast, in Southland and at Huntly East. Last year, it bought Pike River, which has been closed since a blast killed 29 miners in 2011. In a tough last 12 months, the company shed about 450 jobs. Mr English said it would take some time to decide which parts of the company were worth keeping. The shareholding ministers had not had a role in controlling the company's debt raising, and State Owned Enterprises Minister Tony Ryall said questions about the debt levels should be directed to the board. A spokeswoman for Solid Energy said board chairman Mark Ford was unavailable for media interviews. In a statement, Mr Ford - who took over in November as part of a wholesale changeover on the board - said it was working on a turnaround plan. "We believe this plan can provide a sustainable future business to meet expected market conditions." Solid Energy was intended to be included in the Government's partial asset sales programme, but was effectively taken off the block once its financial decline became clear. Mr English said the true condition of its books became clear only after Crisis at state coal company the Treasury began a scoping study as part of readying it for sale. Labour Party spokesman Clayton Cosgrove said the Government had been negligent in its oversight of the company, which was once a "jewel in the Crown" of SOEs. "Four years ago this was an export award-winning company. Now it's a train wreck. Where was the oversight and the monitoring? And what's the result? The poor old taxpayer gets kicked in the guts again - probably to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars." Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn said West Coasters were feeling apprehensive and were waiting to see what would happen. Many still felt "wounded" following the loss of more than 200 direct jobs and 130 contractors let off late last year when the Spring Creek mine was mothballed due to low coal prices, Mr Kokshoorn said. "Now the attention will turn to Westport, where there's about 800 to 1000 working there. "There's already rumours of lay-offs there ... and now that Solid Energy needs cash, it's starting to look quite serious." Mr Kokshoorn was hoping the Government would note that coal prices were forever changing so Solid Energy was worth saving. "I'm saying to the Government and Solid Energy, 'Don't lose your nerve'. Now is the time to inject cash in. Be patient and your $1.7 billion business will return to that eventually when the cycle comes to. "If you're in your house and the roof's full of leaks, you don't abandon your house. You fix your leaks and you save your house that way." Mr English said the SOE was now worth "a lot less" than the $1.7 billion it was valued at last year, but he did not know whether it was worth more than its $389 million debt. Solid Energy's financial condition has deteriorated over the past two years, a slump it attributed to a 40 per cent fall in coal prices and low returns on investment attempts in areas such as biofuels. Read more: Hero to zero in two years, and the kitty's empty

LONG BEACH – Marty Poissant and Gary Morrison said they were sad to see an iconic pink giant doughnut sign hoisted and removed from its home Thursday on Seventh Street near Pacific Coast Highway, albeit for very different reasons. Poissant stopped by with his sons Andre, 8, and Luc, 6, and reminisced. “My dad and I mowed lawns in the neighborhood, and after we were done we’d stop and eat donuts here,” he said of the now closed doughnut and coffee shop last known as the Original Grind. Poissant remembers sitting at a semicircle counter inside and playing music on the jukebox. “It’s a part of Long Beach, a landmark,” Poissant said of the sign. Morrison is a resident of the neighborhood and saw the removal of the sign as moving one step closer to what he fears will be a traffic nightmare in the area, particularly in the nearby side streets that make up his neighborhood. A Dunkin’ Donuts franchise is scheduled to move into the space, and the current building will be demolished. The franchisee, Frontier Restaurant Group, initially rejected a proposal to include the big 1950s doughnut sign in its design of an 1,889-square-foot, drive-through restaurant. However, after an outcry from residents and preservationists, which included the creation of a Facebook page called “Save the Donut,” the new owners relented. They told the Long Beach Planning Commission they would be willing to incorporate the giant doughnut on the property, despite some concerns about the structural integrity of the 20-foot fiberglass sign. “We don’t want to be viewed as the guys who killed the doughnut,” Dan Almquist, managing partner with Newport Beach-based Frontier Restaurant Group, told the Register in February. It was also in February that another local newspaper reported that the doughnut already had been removed. Reports of that death were an exaggeration, to paraphrase Mark Twain. Morrison was less concerned about the loss of the doughnut than the increased traffic he foresaw with a drive-through restaurant being positioned near the busy intersection of Seventh Street and PCH. “I think this is a quality-of-life issue first and a doughnut issue second,” he said. Morrison said he doubted the doughnut sign would be returned once the Dunkin’ Donuts is in place, despite the owner’s assurances. The owners of the new restaurant said they hope to open in September..

Why people are interested in traditional Chinese parenting “Chinese Americans are overrepresented in many of the nation's elite universities" say Yong Zhao and Wei Qiu. The kids get higher SAT math scores, and are disproportionately represented among U.S. National Merit Scholars (Zhao and Qiu 2009). A recent study of American tenth graders found that Asian-Americans outperformed all other ethnic groups in math and science (Else-Quest et al 2013). Why is this the case? Contrary to popular belief, it’s not because Chinese people enjoy an innate advantage in IQ. When James Flynn analyzed past studies of achievement and IQ, he found that Chinese attainments could be better explained by environmental factors (Flynn 1991). So what’s the secret? Yale law professor Amy Chua says it’s about parenting. Chinese mothers raise more accomplished, academically successful kids because they are more demanding and strict than Western mothers are. Is Chua correct? There is some evidence in her favor. We know, for example, that parents who set high standards tend to have kids who are more successful at school. It’s also clear that Chinese parents tend to spend more time pushing their kids to study, practice, and achieve. But the devil is in the details, and many critics want to know about the specific parenting practices Chua describes in a controversial piece for the Wall Street Journal, and in her autobiographical book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. As I note below, these practices -- which feature the threat of punishment and lots of psychological control -- sound like authoritarian parenting, an approach to child-rearing that is usually not associated with the best academic and emotional child outcomes. The best child outcomes are usually linked with a different style-- authoritative parenting. It's true for many Westerners, and it's also true for many Chinese. When Chinese kids are raised by authoritative parents, they do as well or better than Chinese kids from authoritarian homes. So it’s doubtful that Chua’s tactics are as effective as she thinks, and recent research bears this out. As I note in this blog post, a new study testing Chua's ideas links “tiger parenting” with lower academic achievement and poorer emotional adjustment (Kim et al 2013). What, then, can explain Chinese achievement? Decades of research suggests that Chinese kids have two big advantages, advantages that have little to do with authoritarianism: • Parents emphasize effort, not innate ability • Children's peers support each other when they work hard at school Effort--and the belief that effort pays off--is a key ingredient to Chinese success. Chua herself makes this point in the Wall Street Journal. She doesn’t let her kids believe they can’t succeed. So here is an overview of Chua’s controversial claims, and a look at the research on Chinese parenting. Self-portrait of a Chinese mom Amy Chua is the daughter of Chinese immigrants to the United States. Her parents, she says, were “extremely strict but extremely loving.” She tried to raise her kids the same way. What does this mean? Chua provides some specific examples. For instance, Chua says she never allowed her kids to have a playdate, watch TV, participate in a school play, or choose their own extra-curricular activities. The kids are also not allowed to “get any grade less than an A” or “not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama.” When her 7-year-old daughter failed to master a new piece on the piano, Chua drove her relentlessly. “I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents,” Chua writes, “no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.” Chua made her daughter work into the night, denying her even a break to go to the bathroom. “The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.” Then--at last--the girl made a breakthrough. She mastered the piece, and wanted to play it again and again. And the emotional strife had lifted. That night, the girl crawled into her mother’s bed, and they “snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up. “ To many people, this story is disturbing. Chua’s approach seems harsh and unhelpful. But Chua got the results. And, Chua notes, the point is this: Unlike many Western parents who would have backed down, convinced that the child just wasn’t ready or able to master the new piano piece, Chua believed that her child could do it. But she wasn’t going to learn the piece without intense effort, and that effort wasn’t going to happen unless the child was pushed. What helps kids? To be allowed to choose for themselves, or to be pushed into achievements that will pay off later in life? A more indulgent approach might seem more caring. But, as Chua argues, her parenting style shows a concern for the long-term welfare of her kids. “The Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.” That doesn’t mean that Chinese parenting is better. As Chua recounts in her book, one of her daughters rebelled, and Chua had to reassess her views. She tells Jeff Yang, "...I'm aware now of the limitations of that model -- that it doesn't incorporate enough choice, that it doesn't account for kids' individual personalities...” But Chua sticks by her basic premise. If you want to know why Chinese kids succeed, it’s because of the sorts of parenting practices described above. What does the research say? Chua’s claims have caused a stir. Are the parenting tactics she describes truly effective? And if these tactics work, do they work at a cost to the kids? Here’s what the research says. 1. Traditional Chinese parenting has been labeled as “authoritarian” by some researchers. Authoritarian parenting is a style of child-rearing that emphasizes high standards and a tendency to control kids through shaming, the withdrawal of love, or other punishments. This is distinguished from authoritative parenting, which also emphasizes high standards, but is accompanied by high levels of parental warmth and a commitment to reason with children. 2. When compared with authoritative parenting, authoritarian parenting is linked with lower levels of self-control, more emotional problems, and lower academic performance. These links have been documented for Western kids raised in North America. They have also been documented for Chinese kids living in Beijing and Taiwan. But there are some exceptions. Studies Hong Kong Chinese (Leung et al 1998) and of Chinese immigrants to North America (Chao 2001) have linked authoritarian parenting with higher school achievement. 3. Researchers like Ruth Chao argue that the authoritarian label doesn’t quite map onto the strict, controlling parenting style of many traditional Chinese. “Authoritarian” implies that parents are rather cold and distant. But strict Chinese parents enjoy a sense of closeness with their kids. And the kids may interpret their parents’ coercive tactics as evidence that they are loved. This, says Chao, is why some studies have failed to show a link between poor outcomes and authoritarian parenting among Chinese immigrants. Unlike children in Western authoritarian families--children who feel alienated by their parents--the Chinese-American kids feel connected (Chao 1994; Chao 2001). 4. Traditional Chinese parenting has one clear advantage over contemporary Western parenting: Chinese parents--like many other Asian parents--are more likely to emphasize effort over innate talent. Experiments show that people learn more when they believe that effort, not innate intelligence, is the key to achievement. And other research suggests that Westerners are more likely to assume that a child fails because he lacks innate ability (Stevenson and Lee 1990). 5. Chinese-American kids tend to have peer groups that support achievement. Studies of adolescents in the United States suggest that some kids pay a “nerd penalty” for studying hard. When these kids perform well at school, they get rejected by their peers. Chinese-Americans are less likely to face this choice between scholastic success and social success. Lawrence Steinberg and his colleagues (1992) wonder if “pro-achievement” peer pressure protects Chinese kids from some of the negative effects of authoritarian parenting. And what about creativity? Independent thinking skills? I haven’t found any studies addressing the subject. But some educators in China have expressed concern that traditional Chinese parenting doesn’t foster creativity or divergent thinking (Tobin et al 1991; Zhao 2007). And it seems reasonable to assume that kids won’t develop skills they don’t practice. As Yong Zhao and Wei Qiu note, it’s a myth that Chinese (and other Asian-American) students are good at everything. Like everyone else, they have their strengths and weaknesses. And these are shaped by training. So there is no magic here. Just the payoffs for hard work. Is the controversy justified? It's certainly understandable. People want to know if authoritarian parenting can sometimes be a good thing. I'm inclined to say not. But in any case, it's clear that there are good things about traditional Chinese parenting--and Chinese culture--that don't have anything to do with authoritarianism. And those are lessons that can benefit us all. References: Traditional Chinese parenting If you want to know about Ruth Chao's research, check out this list of papers about Chinese parenting. It includes a number of studies and book chapters that you can download and read. In addition, these are the references cited in the article above: Chao R. 2001. Extending research on the consequences of parenting style for Chinese Americans and European Americans. Child Development 72: 1832-1843. Chao R. 1994. "Beyond parental control; authoritarian parenting style: Understanding Chinese parenting through the cultural notion of training." Child Development 45: 1111-1119. Else-Quest NM, Mineo C, and Higgins A. 2013. Math and science attitudes and achievement at the intersection of gender and ethnicity. Psychology of Women Quarterly. In press. Flynn J R. 1991. Asian Americans: Achievement Beyond IQ. Lawrence Erlbaum. Kim SY, Wang Y, Orozco-Lapray D, Shen Y, and Murtuza M. 2013. Does "Tiger Parenting" Exist? Parenting Profiles of Chinese Americans and Adolescent Developmental Outcomes. Asian Am J Psychol. 2013 Mar 1;4(1):7-18. Leung PWL and Kwon KSF. 1998. Parenting Styles, Motivational Orientations, and Self-Perceived Academic Competence: A Mediational Model. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly.44(1): 1-19. Steinberg L, Lamborn SD, Dornbusch SM, and Darling N. 1992. Impact of parenting practices on adolescent achievement: authoritative parenting, school involvement, and encouragement to succeed. Child Dev. 63(5):1266-81. Stevenson HW and Lee SY. 1990. Contexts of achievement: a study of American, Chinese, and Japanese children. Monogr Soc Res Child Dev. 55(1-2):1-123. Zhao Y. 2007. China and the whole child. Educational Leadership 64(8): 70-73. Zhao Y and Qiu W. 2009. How Good Are the Asians? Refuting Four Myths About Asian-American Academic Achievement. Phi Delta Kappan 90(5): 338-344. Content last modified 3/13image of girl ©iStockphoto.com/Acky Yeung

At least, that's what a survey conducted by Posterous co-founder Gary Tan seems to suggest. Tan asked about 500 teenagers and 500 young adults which social media platforms they use regularly. Though majorities of both groups (55 percent of teenagers and 52 percent of young adults) use Facebook, even more (61 percent of teenagers and 57 percent of young adults) regularly use Tumblr, the sharing-heaving, image-centric blogging platform. Social networks Twitter and Instagram pulled down numbers between 10 and 20 percent for each group. "Facebook is where teens and young adults connect with family and some friends," says digital marketing consultant Tim Peter. "Tumblr is where they connect with like-minded people about the topics they care about." Does that mean brands, particularly those looking to appeal to a younger audience, should shift their Facebook and Twitter-heavy social media efforts toward Tumblr? Business owners and brand communicators say Tumblr has certainly been a help to them, but social media experts say Facebook's still an essential tool, too, even if it's not on top with the high school and college crowds. Tumblr successes Tumblr can be a huge boon to certain brands, says Victoria Jent, owner of Ajent Communications. For example, her client Manic Panic, a makeup and hair brand, is doing really well there. "We have more engagement from Tumblr that any other social media platform," she says. "This weekend, we posted a pic of a lipstick and got 100 reblogs in a couple of hours. You do not see this type of engagement with Facebook." Jent says the brand reblogs virtually any post tagged with "Manic Panic" and leaves comments. It also posts music videos of bands the punk-styled brand has worked with throughout the years, but reblogging is really important. "Our followers want to see real people wearing our makeup," she says. "They want to see how other people express themselves." Asya Rahim, owner of Kissidy Boutique, says Tumblr has been part of her social media strategy from the get-go. "I take time to curate images that are attractive to gain followers and get click-throughs to my website," she says. "We very rarely use Tumblr as a tool for writing. If we write something, it's in the form of an image quote or a quick tip in the form of a graphic." Peter says Tumblr is definitely not text friendly. "Its sweet spot seems to be short, media-rich content such as videos, images, and, a Tumblr favorite, animated gifs," he says. "Companies well versed in design and media obviously work very well on the site." Best fits As Jent noted, Tumblr suits some brands better than others. Notably, brands that work well there have products aimed at teens and lots of visual stuff to show off. "Due to the amount of fandom and 'geekdom' on Tumblr, I highly recommend brands that fit into those categories being in this platform," she says. "Our makeup and hair dye are often used in cosplay. Tumblr is how connect to this audience." With that in mind, Jonathan Rick, president of The Jonathan Rick Group, says not every brand needs a Tumblr. "It caters to youth brands with niche and savvy audiences," he says. "Of course, if this describes your customer base, then a Tumblr make may perfect sense." Even so, Peter points out that lots of brands-whether they're geeky, for teens, artsy, or none of those-have carved out a niche on Tumblr. Condé Nast Traveler, Standard Hotel, IBM, American Express Open Forum, Search Engine Land, HIt Record Joe, Disney, Coca-Cola, and Sesame Street all have active presences there, he says. "As long as the influencers and individuals you want to engage with are there, it's less about whether it's right for your brand and more about are you connecting with its community the right way," Peter says. A few caveats "Tumblr doesn't duplicate all of Facebook's functions," says Shel Holtz of Holtz Communication + Technology. Holtz says he can certainly believe that young users are more inclined toward Tumblr than other social media platforms, but that doesn't indicate they're abandoning Facebook or anything else. Brands shouldn't ignore Tumblr by any means, but they also shouldn't replace other social media efforts. Peter adds that brands should remember that Facebook still attracts about four times more visitors than Tumblr.

OLD ORCHARD BEACH Council will be sworn in Monday as first planned The inauguration of the six residents who were elected Tuesday to replace six Old Orchard Beach town councilors will be held. LEWISTON Mainer awarded $200,000 for doctor’s misdiagnosis said. Analysis: LePage inflated number of complaints A newspaper analysis indicates. AUGUSTA Governor signs bill to pay state’s debt to hospitals Gov. Paul LePage has signed a bill that will pay off the state’s debt to Maine hospitals, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, for Medicaid services. LePage has signed a bill to pay off Maine’s share of a debt to hospitals for providing. The state’s contribution. Maine getting $1.5 million to help with blizzard’s cost Maine is getting $1.5 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help costs due to the blizzard of Feb. 8-9. areas. Restaurants promoting underutilized mackerel set to be featured in additional promotions this summer and fall. Mackerel is considered one of the healthiest fish for human consumption, but there is little demand for it. For a list of participating restaurants and retailers, people can visit. SCARBOROUGH Upgraded intersection set to open Monday on Route 1 An upgraded intersection of Payne Road and Route 1 is scheduled to open Monday, completing a big step in the state’s Dunstan Corner road construction project. This $2.8 million project at the intersection of Route 1 and Payne, Broadturn and Pine Point roads includes new pavement and a realigned Payne Road intersection. It also includes an upgraded traffic light and a new water main. Payne Road has been moved north from its previous intersection with Route 1. The state Department of Transportation is recommending motorists use Route 1 and Haigis Parkway because that intersection was improved recently to handle more traffic than the more rural Payne Road. The department also said work will continue in and around Dunstan Corner and advises drivers to use caution and allow for extra time when passing through the area. All work is scheduled to be completed by the end of July. BANGOR Guard members returning from Afghanistan mission. WALDOBORO Man facing cruelty charges over dog shot with 100 BBs A Waldoboro man is facing animal cruelty charges after a veterinarian found a dog with as many as 100 BB pellets embedded in its skin. Aaron Armstrong, 32, was arrested Thursday on a charge of aggravated animal cruelty and held on $25,000 cash bail. The stray black Labrador was found two weeks ago behind a home in Waldoboro and taken to the Lincoln County Animal Shelter. Someone adopted the female dog and took it to be spayed. That’s when a vet noticed strange lumps on the skin. X-rays showed dozens of BBs under the dog’s face, back and legs. Dr. Dean Domeyer of Boothbay Animal Hospital treated the dog and said despite the trauma it appears to be happy and friendly. Were you interviewed for this story? If so, please fill out our accuracy form. Send questions/comments to the editors.

J. D. Heyes Natural News [1] April 27, 2012 Don’t look now, but some of the world’s smartest people are even predicting the end of the global economic order as we know it, and they’re saying it’ll happen within the next two decades. According to a group of researchers [2] from the Jay W. Forrester’s institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [3] (MIT), a computer simulation concluded that the world could suffer a “global economic collapse” coupled by a “precipitous population decline” at current rates of resource consumption. The research was conducted on behalf of a group known as the The Club of Rome [4], which bills itself “as an informal association of independent leading personalities from politics, business and science, men and women who are long-term thinkers interested in contributing in a systemic interdisciplinary and holistic manner to a better world.” Founded in 1968, The Club of Rome aims “to identify the most crucial problems which will determine the future of humanity through integrated and forward-looking analysis; to evaluate alternative scenarios for the future and to assess risks, choices and opportunities,” and to help find solutions to “challenges.” According to the group’s web site, the research project “took into account the relations between various global developments and produced computer simulations for alternative scenarios.” “Part of the modeling were different amounts of possibly available resources, different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control or environmental protection,” it said. World still on course for self-destruction The recent MIT research builds upon an earlier body of work from the same esteemed institution, dated 1972, that some in the scientific community regardinfamous. According to a report in the Smithsonian Magazine, a team led by researcher Dennis Meadows used computer modeling for the first time in an attempt to answer “a centuries-old question: When will the population outgrow the planet and the natural resources it has to offer?” That work was later made into a book titled The Limits to Growth and has since sold over 10 million copies in 37 languages. Essentially it “warned that if current trends in population, industrialization, pollution, food production and resource depletion continued, that dark time — marked by a plummeting population, a contracting economy and environmental collapse — would come within 100 years,” theS mithsonian Magazine reported. That work was later supported by data presented in the form of a graph designed by Australian physicist Graham Turner, which purports to show how actual data from the 30-year period between 1970 and 2000 matches almost exactly predictions set forth in Meadows’ work. Meadows, who retired in 2004 after 35 years as a professor at MIT, Dartmouth Collegeand theUniversity of New Hampshire, discussed his original research with the Smithsonian on the 40th anniversary of the publishing of The Limits to Growth. He said his team’s “goal was to gather empirical data to test” a theoretical situation showing “the interrelationship of some key global growth factors: population, resources, persistent pollution, food production and industrial activity.” In describing what he meant by a “collapse,” Meadows said the model assumed a “business-as-usual” approach to pressing issues of overuse and over-consumption. “In the world model, if you don’t make big changes soon — back in the ’70s or ’80s — then in the period from 2020 to 2050, population, industry, food and the other variables reach their peaks and then start to fall,” he said. “That’s what we call collapse.” Most of the computer models found steady population and economic growth rates until about 2030. Then, the researchers found, conditions begin to decline, and without “drastic measures for environmental protection,” scenarios began predicting higher likelihoods of population and economic crashes. But is there a bright spot? Despite the dire predictions, the research team said not all hope is lost. The study said “unlimited economic growth” was still very possible, providing governments develop and enact policies and invest in clean- or green-energy technologies that limit the widening of the human ecological footprint. Others say the situation is not nearly as ominous as the MIT report makes it sound. For instance, the lateYale Universityeconomist Henry Wallich, who served a dozen years as a governor of the Federal Research Board, for a time as its chief international economics expert, said once that any attempts to regulate global growth would be akin to “consigning billions to permanent poverty.” Still, other experts believe the matching trends of the earlier 1972 study and the most recently completed body of work are telling, in that they show a similar trajectory of demise. “The issue of global carrying capacity is one that is fraught with all sorts of technical, scientific and philosophical problems,” admits Meadows. But he believes now, as he did four decades ago, that sustainable development is not possible. “When I use the term sustainable development — which I consider to be an oxymoron actually — I am trying to capture the meaning that most people seem to have,” he said. “Either way you use the term, it is just a fantasy. […] We’re at 150 percent of the global carrying capacity.” Sources for this article include: [2] [4] [5] [6]

By Dianne Stallings dstallings@ruidosonews.com @RuidosoNews on Twitter While federal operations ground to a halt from the government shutdown, volunteers at Fort Stanton Cave charged ahead with projects topside. "A good general always has a Plan B. and that was the case on the Bureau of Land Management's Fort Stanton National Conservation Area during the Fort Stanton Cave Study Project's fall expedition," said Lynda Sanchez, public liaison for the group. "Although the cave was shut to everyone, there were other surface projects that continued the research, and the process of understanding the geology, the resistivity and the general landscape." A new small cave was discovered, soil samples were collected over the surface area of the underground course of Snowy River, the long and spectacular calcite formation that draws researchers and explorers annually to the cave. A landscape project headed by Pete Lindsley, Sanchez and Mike Bilbo, a veteran caver with the BLM, encompassed planting cottonwood and Apache plume, and installing a drip system at the BLM Caver Field House, Sanchez said. "BLM had donated the trees and the shrubs and helped plant them," Sanchez said. "The cavers dug a 6-inch, 250-foot long ditch and extended pipe to maintain a slow, steady flow of water to the trees during their first year." Although the expedition was cut in half in terms of time, that didn't deter the volunteers, who completed the work, she said. Steve Peerman, project director, also gave two talks about recent exploration and survey work inside the case, at the Capitan Public Library's First Friday meeting and then at the Ruidoso Public Library, stepping in for BLM personnel. Once the shutdown was over another of the in-cave projects, a biosignature trip to identify any substance that provides scientific evidence of past or present life, with professors from New Mexico State University, was allowed. "So all in all, the expedition was very successful and fielded about 39 volunteers and almost 1,000 volunteer hours," Sanchez said.