Friday, April 17, 2009
Shoppers in the UK each get through a shocking 13,000 carrier bags in their lifetimes, new research shows today as the Government launches a new campaign on reusing bags.A survey of shoppers found that on average we use more than 160 new carrier bags each every single year, at least 400 a year for the average household. In 2008 alone, 9.9 billion carrier bags were distributed -- enough to fill 188 Olympic swimming pools, and if laid end to end they would reach to the moon and back seven times.
Environment Minister Jane Kennedy said:
“We simply can’t continue using the billions of new carrier bags we do every year, it’s such a huge waste and a visible symbol of our throwaway society.
“Retailers and the public have already made great steps in the right direction, and I think if we really can ‘get a bag habit’ and remember to reuse our bags, it puts us on the right track to doing even more to reduce the amount of waste we’re sending to landfill.”
The “Get a bag habit” campaign launched today with the British Retail Consortium aims to encourage the reuse of carrier bags and follows a commitment by seven leading supermarkets to reach a 50 per cent cut in the number of bags given out by the end of May this year. Since 2006 retailers have reduced the amount of bags they give out by 26 per cent.
Friday, April 10, 2009
An international team of astrophysicists has discovered a new planet five times the size of Earth, the smallest extrasolar planet revealed to date outside of our solar system.Using a network of telescopes scattered across the globe, the group discovered the extrasolar planet is more Earth-like than any other planet found so far. It circles its parent star every 10 years. The discovery opens a new chapter in the search for planets that support life.
“That fact that we stumbled on one means there are thousands of them out there,” said Kem Cook, an astronomer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who is also a member of PLANET (Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork), a part of the group that made the discovery. “It’s got a solid core. Its mass is low enough that it couldn’t hold itself together if it were just gas,” Cook said.
The new planet and its red dwarf parent star lies in the constellation Sagittarius, not far from the central bulge of our galaxy.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
A reaper is a machine with revolving bars or teeth used for harvesting grains. Prior to its invention, harvesting was done by hand with cutting tools such as the sickle and scythe, or by animal-drawn wheeled boxes mounted with iron-teethed planks. The first recorded English patent for a mechanical reaper was issued to Joseph Boyce in 1799. Although other early reapers were developed using either vibrating knives or revolving cutters, none of these gained widespread use. In the 1830s, two Americans -- Obed Hussey in Ohio and Cyrus McCormick in Virginia -- developed successful mechanical reaping machines. These first horse-drawn inventions cut the standing grain and swept it onto attached platforms. Men walked along next to the machines raking the cut grain into piles. These early reapers saved farmers hours of manual labor and enabled crops to be grown on a much larger scale. McCormick eventually purchased the patent rights to Hussey's cutting bar and began the mass production of his reaper in a Chicago factory. In 1851, his machine became an international sensation when it won a Gold Medal at the London Crystal Palace exposition. He later modified his original design to enable the grain to be cut, raked and bound by the same machine. By the 20th century, the reaper was replaced by a one-man-operated harvesting machine called a combine, which cut, gathered, threshed and sacked grain mechanically. However, it was the invention of the reaper that began the transition from hand farming to the mechanized agricultural industry we know today. Thursday, March 26, 2009
In an alarm bell to WTO's 153 members, Director-General Pascal Lamy said free trade has suffered "significant slippage" this year as countries have erected new barriers to imports in the form of tariffs, subsidies and other measures designed to protect domestic industries.
Lamy said Thursday there was still no indication of a global descent into the trade wars that helped bring on the Great Depression. But he said "the danger today is of an incremental buildup of restrictions that could slowly strangle international trade and undercut the effectiveness of policies to boost aggregate demand and restore sustained growth globally."
Lamy's 47-page report obtained by The Associated Press lists dozens of government policies that are or would appear protectionist, if not illegal.
Trade has been a key driver of global economic expansion over the past three decades, growing faster than economic output and spurring gains in both rich and poor countries. But it is being hit hard by the economic crisis, with the WTO announcing earlier this week that commercial activity was expected to shrink by 9 percent this year, the worst collapse since World War II.
Protectionism will be one of the key issues when 20 of the world's leading economic powers meet in London next week. Those countries, which pledged in November in Washington to avoid spurring their economies at the expense of others, did not escape criticism in the WTO report.
Lamy said fiscal stimulus and government bailouts should be welcomed in the current environment because they aim to reverse a fall in global demand and revive international trade in goods and services. But he said the trade effects of such packages needed to be considered as they can provoke tit-for-tat retaliation that hurts all economies.
Fears are rampant that amid the most dangerous economic downturn in 80 years countries will resort to the same shortsighted trade policies after the 1929 stock market crash.
The United States then led that charge by raising tariffs on hundreds of foreign goods, sparking worldwide retaliation and the devastation of international commerce.
Part of the danger is that global trade rules provide so much space for maneuvering that countries can inflict serious damage on foreign exporters without violating any agreements.
Most nations can legally raise their tariffs somewhat above the level they currently charge on imports. They can attach extra duties on foreign goods they suspect are being "dumped" at below-market value. Complicated import licenses can be required. Safety standards for imports can be set so high that trade stops. Rich countries have the option of subsidies.
"The main risk is that governments will continue to cede ground to protectionist pressures, even if only gradually, as long as the global economic situation continues to deteriorate," Lamy warned. "In that case, the negative impact on trade will mount as the number of new measures accumulates. This will worsen the contraction of world trade and undermine confidence in an early and sustained recovery in global economic activity."
The report praises efforts by some leaders, such as Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to reject or reverse decisions aimed at making it harder for companies in foreign countries. President Barack Obama was also commended for ensuring that "Buy American" provisions in the United States' $789 billion stimulus package comply with international agreements.
But its shame list was longer.
In the footwear sector alone, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, the European Union, Turkey and Ukraine have enacted or are considering measures designed to slow imports from China or Vietnam, the report showed.
Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, India, Russia, and the United States were cited for automotive tariffs, subsidies, credits, licenses or other changes deemed dangerous to trade.
Argentina, the 27-nation EU, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Russia, Turkey, the U.S. and Vietnam were listed for protective steel regulations.
It was Lamy's second report on protectionism this year. Future reports are expected every two months as the WTO steps up its monitoring of the crisis.
Source http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/27/business/EU-WTO-Protectionism.php
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Once dubbed the "Queen of Carbon Science" as one of the nation's foremost experts in the multifaceted field of carbon science, longtime Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Institute Professor Mildred Dresselhaus has been named the National Science Board's 2009 Vannevar Bush Awardee."Every morning before 6 a.m. for the past 40 years when I arrive at work, I pass a massive photograph of Vannevar Bush at his milling machine," said Dresselhaus, whose office is in the Vannevar Bush building at MIT. "When I see his smiling face, I get charged up for my day's adventure with the endless frontier of science and for my work with students and collaborators worldwide who will be enjoying the excitement of my adventures with me."
Each year, the National Science Board (NSB) presents the Vannevar Bush Award to an individual who, through public service activities in science and technology, has made an outstanding "contribution toward the welfare of mankind and the nation."
The NSB will honor Dresselhaus for her leadership through public service in science and engineering, her perseverance and advocacy in increasing opportunities for women in science, and for her extraordinary contributions in the field of condensed-matter physics and nanoscience.
Born Mildred Spiewak and raised in an impoverished household in the Bronx, Mildred Dresselhaus beat the odds by receiving a high quality education, joining the faculty at MIT in 1968, when women comprised just 4 percent of the student population and becoming a pioneer in the field of condensed matter and materials physics. Today, the percentage of women at MIT is 40 percent, and Dresselhaus holds the title of Institute Professor, the highest honor the university bestows on its faculty (she was the first woman to receive this title).
Over the course of her career, Dresselhaus' research has covered a wide range of topics in condensed matter and materials physics. She is best known for her work on carbon science and carbon nanostructures, and is also credited for being one of the researchers who caused the resurgence of the thermoelectrics research field 15 years ago by moving the field in the direction of nanostructures.
Her investigations into superconductivity, the electronic properties of carbon, thermoelectricity and the new physics at the nanometer scale have led to numerous scientific discoveries. She served as president of the American Physical Society, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and treasurer of the National Academy of Science, the Academy's first woman officer. In 1970, she co-founded the Women's Forum at MIT. In addition, she has been the doctorate supervisor of about 75 graduate students, and has had a special interest throughout her career in mentoring young people and in expanding the opportunities for women in science and engineering.
NSB members agreed that Dresselhaus is especially deserving of the Vannevar Bush Award for her outstanding contributions to both her scientific field and to the scientific community at large. She has received the National Medal of Science; the Buckley Prize for Condensed Matter Physics from the American Physical Society; the L'Oreal-UNESCO North American Laureate for Women in Science; the Founders Medal of the IEEE; the Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy, and Employment; the Oersted Medal for Physics Education from the American Association for Physics Teachers; and 25 honorary doctorates worldwide.
"We feel that the Vannevar Bush Award is an excellent and appropriate addition to this list," said NSB Chairman, Steven Beering.
Dresselhaus received her undergraduate education at Hunter College. After a year at Cambridge and another at Harvard, she completed her doctorate at the University of Chicago. Her thesis in 1958 explored the subject of microwave properties of superconductors in a magnetic field that could not be explained by the BCS fundamental theory of superconductivity, which came in 1957, many years after the discovery of superconductivity (1911).
Following her doctoral studies, Dresselhaus spent two years at Cornell as an NSF postdoctoral fellow, and then seven years as a staff member of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the Solid State Physics Division. She joined the MIT faculty in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1967, and the Department of Physics in 1983, and was named an institute professor in 1985. She served as the director of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy from 2000 to 2001, and as the chair of the Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics from 2003 to 2008.
Dresselhaus will receive the Vannevar Bush medal at a black-tie dinner and ceremony on May 13, 2009, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, along with recipients of the 2009 NSB Public Service Award, Roald Hoffmann of Cornell University and the American Chemical Society's Project SEED. NSF's Alan T. Waterman Awardee David Charbonneau of Harvard University will also be honored that evening.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
PASADENA, Calif. -- Loose soil piled against the northern edge of a low plateau called "Home Plate" has blocked NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit from taking the shortest route toward its southward destinations for the upcoming Martian summer and following winter.The rover has begun a trek skirting at least partway around the plateau instead of directly over it.
However, Spirit has also gotten a jump start on its summer science plans, examining a silica-rich outcrop that adds information about a long-gone environment that had hot water or steam. And even a circuitous route to the destinations chosen for Spirit would be much shorter than the overland expedition Spirit's twin, Opportunity, is making on the opposite side of Mars.
Both rovers landed on Mars in 2004 for what were originally planned as three-month missions there.
Spirit spent 2008 on the northern edge of Home Plate, a flat-topped deposit about the size of a baseball field, composed of hardened ash and rising about 1.5 meters (5 feet) above the ground around it. There, the north-facing tilt positioned Spirit's solar arrays to catch enough sunshine for the rover to survive the six-month-long Martian winter.
The scientists and engineers who operate the rovers chose as 2009 destinations a steep mound called "Von Braun" and an irregular, 45-meter-wide (150-foot-wide) bowl called "Goddard." These side-by-side features offer a promising area to examine while energy is adequate during the Martian summer and also to provide the next north-facing winter haven beginning in late 2009. Von Braun and Goddard intrigue scientists as sites where Spirit may find more evidence about an explosive mix of water and volcanism in the area's distant past. They are side-by-side, about 200 meters, or yards, south of where Spirit is now.
It's mid-spring now in the southern hemisphere of Mars. The sun has climbed higher in the sky over Spirit in recent weeks.
The rover team tried to drive Spirit onto Home Plate, heading south toward Von Braun and Goddard. They tried this first from partway up the slope where the rover had spent the winter. Only five of the six wheels on Spirit have been able to rotate since the right-front wheel stopped working in 2006. With five-wheel drive, Spirit couldn't climb the slope. In January and February, Spirit descended from Home Plate and drove eastward about 15 meters (about 50 feet) toward a less steep on-ramp. Spinning wheels in loose soil led the rover team to choose another of its options.
"Spirit could not make progress in the last two attempts to get up onto Home Plate," said John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., project manager for both rovers. "Alternatively, we are driving Spirit around Home Plate to the east. Spirit will have to go around a couple of small ridges that extend to the northeast, and then see whether a route east of Home Plate looks traversable. If that route proves not to be traversable, a route around the west side of Home Plate is still an option."
During the drive eastward just north of Home Plate in January, Spirit stopped to use tools on its robotic arm to examine a nodular, heavily eroded outcrop dubbed "Stapledon," which had caught the eye of rover-team scientist Steve Ruff when he looked at images and infrared spectra Spirit took from its winter position.
"It looked like the material east of Home Plate that we found to be rich in silica," said Ruff, of Arizona State University, Tempe. "The silica story around Home Plate is the most important finding of the Spirit mission so far with regard to habitability. Silica this concentrated forms around hot springs or steam vents, and both of those are favorable environments for life on Earth."
Sure enough, Spirit's alpha particle X-ray spectrometer found Stapledon to be rich in silica, too.
"Now we have found silica on a second side of Home Plate, expanding the size of the environment we know was affected by hot springs or steam vents," Ruff said. "The bigger this system, the more water was involved, the more habitable this system may have been."
The contact measurement with the X-ray spectrometer also gave the team confidence in its ability to identify silica-rich outcrops from a distance with the rover's thermal emission spectrometer, despite some dust that has accumulated on a periscope mirror of that instrument. Researchers plan to use Spirit's thermal emission spectrometer and panoramic camera to check for more silica-rich outcrops on the route to Von Braun and Goddard. However, the team has set a priority to make good progress toward those destinations. Winds cleaned some dust off Spirit's solar panels on Feb. 6 and Feb. 14, resulting in a combined increase of about 20 percent in the amount of power available to the rover.
Opportunity, meanwhile, shows signs of increased friction in its right-front wheel. The team is driving the rover backwards for a few sols, a technique that has helped in similar situations in the past, apparently by redistributing lubricant in the wheel. Opportunity's major destination is Endeavour Crater, about 22 kilometers (14 miles) in diameter and still about 12 kilometers (7 miles) away to the southeast. Opportunity has been driving south instead of directly toward Endurance, to swing around an area where loose soil appears deep enough to potentially entrap the rover.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Monitoring the opening kinks and experiments of a new talk show is a spectator sport, and this entry comes with an added “American Idol” edge: NBC had the last word during the auditions, but Internet users are now expected to comment and cavil interactively and build — or diminish — Mr. Fallon’s television audience.
Mr. Fallon was cute and funny on “Saturday Night Live,” but he is not necessarily the ideal choice for the “Late Night” core audience of young males: his humor is mischievous, not anarchic. (If fans had a call-in vote, they might have elected Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.)
Still, Mr. Fallon is engaging and has an antic, quick-witted charm. He seemed more confident by the show’s third night and, oddly enough, had better comic chemistry with Cameron Diaz on Wednesday than with Tina Fey, his former “Weekend Update” co-anchor on “SNL,” the night before. Most of his skits and routines, however, seemed written for the Web, not for broadcast.
It’s still too soon to pass judgment on Mr. Fallon’s talents as a talk show host, but it’s a perfectly good time to examine NBC’s latest test of synergy, the marriage of the Internet and a television show.
Almost all shows nowadays have Web sites with extraneous videos, fan blogs and viewer e-mail exchanges. But Mr. Fallon has gone further to co-opt the Internet than either of his two network rivals, Jimmy Kimmel on ABC and Craig Ferguson on CBS, or even cable upstarts like Chelsea Handler, the host of “Chelsea Lately” on E! In the months leading up to his debut on Monday, Mr. Fallon tried to pump up younger viewers’ interest with “Late Night” Webisodes. He has pages on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.
Perhaps accordingly, many of the routines he worked into the show in its first nights might have been better suited to YouTube. And that youth-oriented material clashes with the highly conventional, even fusty jokes in his opening monologue (“Everybody’s cutting back, everybody: Madonna’s now down to one teenage boyfriend”), as well as with the choice of a veteran actor, Robert De Niro, to be his first guest.
Twitter is so overexposed that it has become a joke, but Mr. Fallon apparently isn’t in on it. He interviewed Ms. Diaz by posing questions submitted via Twitter. Those turned out to be as dull and anodyne as any taken from a live audience. (“If Cameron wasn’t acting, what would her dream job be?” Ms. Diaz didn’t have a ready answer, so Mr. Fallon supplied it: “Forest ranger.”)
Wednesday’s quite funny parody of romance novels, “bromance novels,” came with a link on the show’s Web site (latenightwithjimmyfallon.com) that allows users to watch a video of the shooting of the cover art.
Mr. Fallon consistently tried to incorporate a wackier Web spirit into his on-air performance, even picking random people in the studio audience and assigning them made-up Facebook identities. None were very funny.
Remarkably, given how many months he has had to prepare, many of his supposedly wacky, Web-style pranks were oddly plodding and unimaginative. On the first night three audience members were invited onstage to lick something in exchange for $10. The things were all inanimate objects: a lawn mower, a copier, a fishbowl. The slow-motion “super-sexy replay” was funny once, not three times.
Mr. Fallon does not have a sidekick, but he does have a cool band, the Roots, whose musicians are deadpan and steadfastly underwhelmed by his jokes, and over time that could serve as a comic foil to his eager-to-please persona.
There were other amusing moments, including a random, bizarre video of German soccer players dancing that was found on the Web and a mock charitable appeal for laid-off Wall Street workers, a Save the Bankers Foundation, that could have just as easily been a “Saturday Night Live” skit.
And Mr. Fallon got better, and more relaxed, after his debut, though he joked with Tina Fey about his “flop sweat” moment with Mr. De Niro. (When performers admit to being nervous, it’s a little like a woman on a date bemoaning how fat she is: nobody wants to hear it.)
The first days are tough because large audiences tune in to see what all the prepremiere fuss was about, boosting ratings and expectations, then quickly turn away if not instantly amused. And most hosts go through a trial-and-error period. Mr. Kimmel started out more loutishly and live; now he is more buttoned-down, and his show is taped, even though it is still called “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
Mr. Ferguson began with a very conventional “Tonight Show” format, then slowly allowed more of his own offbeat storytelling and Monty Pythonesque eccentricities into his act.
NBC picked Mr. Fallon, and he can sometimes seem like an old person’s notion of a hip young comic, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t funny or that he cannot hold his own on “Late Night.” Only time, not Twitter, will tell.
Source nytimes.com/2009/03/06/arts/television/06fall.html?hp
Friday, February 27, 2009
One in 6 Illinois banks recorded a loss in the fourth quarter, up from 1 in 11 a year earlier.
Still, the 570 banks as group earned $482 million in 2008. That's down from $2.56 billion in 2007.
The state's 85 thrifts fared worse, with 40 percent losing money, up from 27 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007. Collectively in 2008 the state's savings and loans lost $270 million, worse than the $80 million in losses they racked up the previous year.
Those are among findings released Thursday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which announced that the nation's bank and thrift industry lost $26.2 billion in the fourth quarter, the first quarterly loss since 1990.
More than two-thirds of all insured U.S. institutions were profitable in the fourth quarter, the U.S. regulator said, but their earnings were dwarfed by big losses at big banks.
All insured institutions eked out a $575 million combined profit in the fourth quarter of 2007.
The FDIC also said that the number of institutions nationally on its undisclosed "problem list" rose from 171 in the third quarter to 252 in the fourth quarter, the highest number since mid-1995.
Reasons for the industry losses included rising levels of money that banks have to set aside to cover loans that might go bad, as well as losses from investment activities.
Return on equity in the fourth quarter for Illinois' commercial banks in the report was 1.8 percent, down from 7.7 percent one year before.
Results generally were better at the smallest banks. The average return on equity of those with assets of less than $100 million dropped in the fourth quarter to 4.5 percent from 5.6 percent, while banks with assets of more than $100 million declined to 1.7 percent from 7.8 percent.
Return on assets also fell, particularly for the larger-bank group.
The percentage of Illinois institutions reporting profit gains for the fourth quarter was 43.7 percent. In the quarter one year earlier, 53 percent reported higher earnings. Again, results were more stable at institutions with assets of $100 million or less.
Equity capital of all commercial banks in the state fell in the fourth quarter to $26.79 billion from $40.43 billion one year before.
Source www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-illinois-bank-earnings-feb27,0,3634840,print.story
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Located in the southern periphery of the Tenggeli desert, 195 kilometers from Bayanhot and 18 kilometers from Shapotou Tourist District of Zhongwei City in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the district is an exemplary spot for agriculture tourism and has four square kilometers of wet land, featuring green grass cushions, clean air and natural sceneries with main tourist items including karting, watching migratory birds, fishing, camel-riding for desert exploration, sand skating and many others.Thursday, February 12, 2009
To ensure a broad cross-section of ideas and expertise, Governor Gregoire assembled a diverse group of business, community, education, government and minority leaders from all across Washington to create this roadmap for building a world–class education system that prepares all Washington students to succeed in today’s global economy.
Preparing all students to succeed in today’s global economy
- Fully integrate our early learning, K–12 and post-secondary education systems so that the transition from one step to the next is seamless.
- Ensure all children thrive early in life and are prepared to enter school.
- Ensure all students master the skills they need to participate thoughtfully and productively in their work and their communities.
- Close the achievement gap that academically sidelines low-income and minority students.
- Make higher education and workforce training opportunities relevant and affordable so our workforce can compete within a global economy.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Extreme Weather To Challenge Multiple Response Agencies in Manitoba
0 comments Posted by Best-Mature at 12:58 AM“This is the largest winter exercise ever organized by the fire commissioner, bringing together front‑line and support agencies in conditions that will challenge individuals and equipment,” said Allan.
“This exercise will also test the capacity of provincial and community resources to provide support to the response groups. We believe that if we can successfully operate in a remote environment, then we should have no problem in an urban setting. This exercise will come up against some of the most severe geographic and weather-related issues our province can pose.”
Agencies scheduled to participate include the Office of the Fire Commissioner, Manitoba Emergency Measures Organization, RCMP, the Department of National Defence, Winnipeg Police Service, Search and Rescue Manitoba and a number of ground search and rescue teams, the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association and the community of Waterhen. Frontier School Division is providing students to act as victims during the exercise.
The new, state-of-the-art mobile command post will be tested for the first time. The vehicle features advanced satellite technology to assist ground and air search teams and is self-contained with its own power and water systems. A recently acquired unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will also be used in this search and rescue operation. The remote-control unit provides pictures, video and mapping capability using geographic information systems. Assiniboine Community College in Brandon is providing technical assistance and operators for the UAV. The USAR mobile, 10-bed multi-casualty treatment facility, staffed with medical professionals, will also be incorporated in the exercise for the first time.
Manitoba’s USAR team is prepared to respond to any emergency anywhere in any weather. The team recently participated in a cross-boundary exercise with Ontario in November. USAR can provide technical rescue services for many emergencies and is capable of providing any type of search and rescue activity, regardless of the size and complexity of the incident.
The Manitoba Office of the Fire Commissioner has the responsibility for running the USAR team of more than 100 members in Manitoba. It is made up of emergency response professionals from municipal and provincial services.
There are five USAR teams across Canada in Vancouver, Calgary, Manitoba, Toronto and Halifax which are jointly funded by the Government of Canada. The teams were formed after the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Initially charged by Congress with the "classification of the public lands," the USGS began topographic and geologic mapping in 1879. Most of the early USGS mapping activities took place in the vast, largely uninhabited Western United States.
Extreme challenges awaited these mapping pioneers. Travel was arduous and costly. Many locations could be reached only by mule pack train. Furthermore, surveying and mapping instruments were crude by today's standards. Most maps were made using a classic mapping technique called planetable surveying.
Planetable surveying took great skill and, depending on the mapping site, equal daring. Carrying a planetable—essentially a portable drawing board on a tripod with a sighting device--the topographer would climb to the area's best vantage point and carefully plot on the map those features that could be seen and measured in the field. Planetable surveying remained the dominant USGS mapping technique until the 1940's, when it gave way to the airplane and the age of photogrammetry.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
A report to be considered by the SEStran board this week recommends that SEStran play a leading role in a new campaign to lobby for high speed rail services.
The Scottish Association for Public Transport (SAPT) has approached SEStran to work in partnership with other Regional Transport Partnerships (RTPs), Scottish business, cross-party political interests and other bodies, to press for action on the issue.
SEStran is already strongly involved with the Channel Tunnel Initiative (CTI) Group, which was originally set up to promote expansion of the Channel Tunnel services beyond London, and has adopted promotion of the concept of a UK-wide high speed rail network.
SEStran Chair, Cllr Russell Imrie said:
“The development of high speed rail links with London, other parts of Scotland and the UK would have many advantages for the SEStran region, which is why we have already set aside part of our 2008-9 budget to fund research in this area
“High speed rail offers a viable alternative to air travel for business travellers and others planning long distance travel within the UK. It could also play a role in reducing car dependency, by providing an alterative to driving for many long distance commuters”.
“SEStran has a track record of championing high-speed rail as one of the range of options that should be actioned to create a sustainable transportation system that will meet the needs of everyone living in SE Scotland. We will continue to play a leading role in campaigning for action on this issue”
Saturday, January 17, 2009
This tree, like redbud, is a legume, hence the fruit is a flat pod 3 to 4 inches long, remaining on the tree though winter. The black, bony seed inside the pod is eaten by squirrels.The leaf is compound, having from 7 to 19 entire leaflets which are alternate, light green above and pale green underneath.Branches are armed with a pair of short, sharp spines located at the base of each petiole. Mature bark resembles black, twisted rope.
Locust flowers form pendant clusters of honey-sweet white blossoms, spreading a fragrance of heavy perfume in late spring. Because of the sweet flower scent, some people confuse this with its relative, the honey locust. Honey locust gets its name from the honey-like pulp of its large pods, often 12 to 18 inches long. It is easily recognized by long, wicked thorns located on the trunk and branches.
Insulator pins and fence posts have been made from black locust because of its resistance to rot. In olden days the wood was used for fuel and cross ties.The grub or larvae of the black locust borer tunnels through the central part of the stem, hollowing and weakening it. A strong wind can finish the job of breaking the main stem.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
ARS scientists in Beltsville, Md., and Athens, Ga.—and their co-investigators—are analyzing dairy manure samples, bird droppings and water, for instance, from test farms in New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont to check for such pathogens as Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria and Campylobacter.An example: Samples from one farm showed that although 45 percent of the cows tested positive for Salmonella, milk from the animals was free of detectable levels of the microbe
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
CMKM Diamonds Inc. and its predecessor Casavant Mining Kimberlite International are Nevada-based companies with operations primarily in Saskatchewan. Their shares trade on over-the-counter market pink sheets. Vic Pankratz, Deputy Director of Enforcement for the Saskatchewan Financial Services Commission, advises that people who are interested in investing in this type of activity should first seek advice from a stock broker, lawyer, accountant, bank or Credit Union Manager, financial advisor or the Securities Division of the Saskatchewan Financial Services Commission.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
- many are unable to work
- there can be mental and physical deterioration
- relationships can be weakened
- families may experience disruption and financial difficulties; and
- persistent pain can lead to feelings of hopelessness and dispair
Today much can be done to relieve pain, provide greater comfort, and help many pain sufferers to regain a normal lifestyle. The first step is to seek medical attention for on-going pain. Often it is possible to resolve the problem. Sometimes the pain may need specialist medical treatment, perhaps surgery. Even where the pain cannot be resolved and suffering and disability continue, there are techniques and tools which can help people to live and work with their pain.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Treasury Announces Guaranty Program for Money Market Funds
0 comments Posted by Best-Mature at 4:43 AMPresident George W. Bush approved the use of existing authorities by Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. to make available as necessary the assets of the Exchange Stabilization Fund for up to $50 billion to guarantee the payment in the circumstances described below.
Money market funds play an important role as a savings and investment vehicle for many Americans; they are also a fundamental source of financing for our capital markets and financial institutions. Maintaining confidence in the money market fund industry is critical to protecting the integrity and stability of the global financial system.Concerns about the net asset value of money market funds falling below $1 have exacerbated global financial market turmoil and caused severe liquidity strains in world markets. In turn, these pressures have caused a spike in some short term interest and funding rates, and significantly heightened volatility in exchange markets. Absent the provision of such financing, there is a substantial risk of further heightened global instability.
Maintenance of the standard $1 net asset value for money market mutual funds is important to investors. If the net asset value for a fund falls below $1, this undermines investor confidence. The program provides support to investors in funds that participate in the program and those funds will not "break the buck".This action should enhance market confidence and alleviate investors' concerns about the ability for money market mutual funds to absorb a loss. Investors in money market mutual funds with a net asset value that falls below $1 would be notified that their fund triggered the insurance program.
The Exchange Stabilization Fund was established by the Gold Reserve Act of 1934. This Act authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the President, "to deal in gold, foreign exchange, and other instruments of credit and securities" consistent with the obligations of the U.S. government in the International Monetary Fund to promote international financial stability.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Friday, December 05, 2008
Flexible semi-transparent tube up to 50 cm long and 1 cm wide. Feather-like projections (radioles) extend from the tube, up to 20 cm long. Forms large meadows obscuring the seafloor. Crown of the radioles varies in colour from orange to white to red-brown. Tube outer layer often covered in greyish silt, mud and other small marine organisms. Crown with two different size lobes of radioles - one lobe has more radioles that the and forms a spiral with one of five whorls,the other lobe forms a semicircle
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, an Obama advisor and Harvard economist Lawrence H Summers, whom the President-elect has chosen to lead his White House economic team, raised the possibility of USD 700 billion in new spending.Obama advisor and former Clinton administration Labour Secretary Robert Reich and Democrat Senator Charles E Schumer also favoured spending in the range of USD 500 billion to USD 700 billion, the 'Washington Post' reported on Monday.
The amount, if approved, will be one of the biggest public spending programmes aimed at boosting the economy since former President Franklin D Roosevelt's 'New Deal', it said.Transition officials did not confirm to the paper that they are considering spending of that magnitude, but they made clear that economic conditions are dire and suggested that Obama might be forced to delay his pledge to repeal President George W Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.
While Obama has set a goal of creating or preserving 2.5 million jobs by 2011, his economic team have yet to decide how that would be accomplished or how much it would cost.Austan Goolsbee, a spokesman for Obama on economic issues who is in line to serve on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, on Sunday acknowledged that Obama's jobs plan will cost substantially more than the USD 175 billion stimulus programme he proposed during the campaign.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Access Trail: Pigeon Creek Trail
Trailhead: From Oconaluftee Visitor Center, drive south (toward Cherokee) on US-441 and take the second left onto Big Cove Road. At the first stop sign turn left and drive 4.5 miles to Mingo Falls Campground, where the trail begins.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Your esophagus is the tube that carries food from your mouth to your stomach.Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) happens when a muscle at the end of your esophagus does not close properly. This allows stomach contents to leak back, or reflux, into the esophagus and irritate it.
* Avoiding alcohol and spicy, fatty or acidic foods that trigger heartburn
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Most commonly, gourds are the product of the species Lagenaria siceraria (the calabash or African bottle gourd), native to Africa, and at a very early date spread throughout the world by human migrations. This species may be the oldest plant domesticated by humans.[citation needed]
Gourds can be used as a number of things, including bowls or bottles. Gourds are also used as resonating chambers on certain musical instruments including the berimbau and many other stringed instruments and drums. Instruments of this type are fairly common to the Caribbean. Gourds are also used as a tool for sipping yerba mate by means of a bombilla, in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, where it is called "cuia" (kOOya). Birdhouse gourds are commonly used in southern USA for group housing for purple martins, which reputedly help control mosquitoes. "Gourd" can also refer to the live fruit before it is dried, or to the entire
plant that produces that fruit.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Lewis Hamilton was overwhelmed by emotion after capturing the 2008 world championship by a single point at a thrilling season finale in Brazil.
"It's pretty impossible to put into words," said the 23-year-old, who is now the youngest ever F1 champion.
"It's been such a long journey and I'm so speechless. After all the sacrifices we've made I am so thrilled to be able to do this for everyone.
"It was one of the toughest races of my life - if not the toughest."
Hamilton clinched the title when he passed Timo Glock accelerating out of the final corner of the race to snatch the drivers' crown from Felipe Massa, who took the chequered flag ahead of him.With Massa winning at Interlagos, the Englishman knew he had to finish fifth to claim the title but he had slipped to sixth with one lap to go.In one final twist, however, Hamilton overtook Glock's slowing Toyota to clinch the fifth place he needed - and with it the title.
"The team didn't say anything so I thought I was shot," said Hamilton, who became Britain's ninth world champion and the first since Damon Hill in 1996."I didn't know where Glock was and Vettel was the guy to beat and I couldn't catch him, so at that point I was going to finish sixth. My heart was in my mouth," said Hamilton.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Scientific journalists also must choose which developments in science merit news coverage, as well as cover disputes within the scientific community with a balance of fairness to both sides but also with a devotion to the facts.
Many, but not all, journalists covering science have training in the sciences they cover, including several medical journalists who cover medicine.
Friday, October 31, 2008
The national calendar based on the Saka Era, with Chaitra as its first month and a normal year of 365 days was adopted from 22 March 1957 along with the Gregorian calendar for the following official purposes:
(i) Gazette of India,
(ii) news broadcast by All India Radio,
(iii) calendars issued by the Government of India and
(iv) Government communications addressed to the members of the public.
Dates of the national calendar have a permanent correspondence with dates of the Gregorian calendar, 1 Chaitra falling on 22 March normally and on 21 March in leap year.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
"Adelie penguins are a wonderful model to study the problem of climate change," said Lambert. "They have lived through temperature fluctuations much higher than those in equatorial regions."Lambert said Adelie penguins have survived several degrees of warming since the last glacial maximum 18,000 years ago.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The last remaining survivor of the Titanic plans to sell mementoes from the ship to pay her nursing home fees.
Now 96, Millvina Dean was nine weeks old when the liner sank in the North Atlantic in 1912.She hopes to raise £3,000 by selling items including a suitcase full of clothes given to her by the people of New York after her rescue.The auction in Wiltshire will also feature compensation letters sent to her mother by the Titanic Relief Fund. They explained that she would be awarded one pound, seven shillings and six pence per week.
Several rare prints of the Titanic - including one of it leaving the White Star dock in Southampton - will also go under the hammer.Miss Dean moved into a private nursing home in Ashurst, Hants, two years ago.She told the Southern Daily Echo: "I was hoping to be here for two weeks after breaking my hip, but I developed an infection and have been here for two years. I am not able to live in my home any more.
"I am selling it all now because I have to pay these nursing home fees and am selling anything that I think might fetch some money."The Dean family were emigrating to Kansas when the Titanic went down.Miss Dean was placed in a sack and carried to safety along with her mother and brother.But her father Bertram was one of more than 1,500 people who died.The auction will take place at Henry Aldridge and Son auctioneers in Devizes, Wilts, on Saturday.Andrew Aldridge said: "The suitcase is a very emotive and unusual item and epitomises what the people of New York did for the Titanic survivors.
"It also highlights what state the survivors were in when they got to New York. Many people lost everything down to the clothes they were standing in."Miss Dean is the last survivor of the Titanic after Barbara Dainton, from Cornwall, died last year aged 96.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Today’s quality managers face a myriad of challenges, from monitoring quality of goods to organizing documentation to managing compliance with multiple regulations. Many quality departments address each of their functions with a separate set of practices, leading to duplicated efforts and disorganized documentation. This is compounded by a limited, fragmented use of technology to automate processes.
IBS Quality Management Software is an easy-to-use platform for all your quality needs. The software helps users automate and integrate all their quality management activities, driving accuracy and efficiency across the enterprise. Plus, the software is easy to deploy, learn, and use.
With IBS Quality Management Software, you can:
- Maintain and distribute all your documentation
- Execute corrective and preventative actions
- Improve customer management and supplier quality
- Perform internal and supplier assessments
- Assess, prioritize and mitigate risks
- Improve employee training and qualification
- Achieve compliance with ISO and FDA regulations
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Ricky Ponting's Australia arrived in India on Monday for a four-Test tour, setting aside security worries following deadly bomb blasts in the country and in neighbouring Pakistan. The 15-man squad will spend the next week training in Jaipur before flying to Hyderabad for a four-day match against the Indian board president's XI from October 2. That will be Australia's only warm-up before the first Test starts in Bangalore on October 9. The remaining Tests will be played in Mohali, New Delhi and Nagpur. The highly-anticipated tour had been placed in doubt after five co-ordinated bomb blasts ripped through crowded markets in New Delhi on September 13, killing more than 20 people. A suicide attack on the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on Saturday that killed 53 people and wounded 266 forced Ponting to admit security concerns were on his mind before the team left Australia. "I've done it all day today, I've had a lot of discussions with my wife about those exact issues," Ponting said in Sydney on Sunday. "Our advice was not to go to Pakistan and the advice that we received the last few weeks to tour India has been positive." Australia cancelled a Test tour of Pakistan in March and also raised security concerns about this month's Champions Trophy there, forcing the tournament to be put off by a year.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Nootropics, popularly referred to as "smart drugs", "smart nutrients", "cognitive enhancers" and "brain enhancers", are a class of drugs that improve impaired human cognitive abilities (the functions and capacities of the brain). The term covers a broad range of substances including drugs, nutrients and herbs that have purported cognitive enhancing effects.
The word nootropic was coined in 1964 by the Romanian Dr. Corneliu E. Giurgea, derived from the Greek words noos, or "mind," and tropein meaning "to bend/turn". Typically, nootropics are alleged to work by altering the availability of the brain's supply of neurochemicals (neurotransmitters, enzymes, and hormones), by improving the brain's oxygen supply, or by stimulating nerve growth. However the efficacy of alleged nootropic substances in most cases has not been conclusively determined. This is complicated by the difficulty of defining and quantifying cognition and intelligence.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Pharmacogenomics is the whole genome application of pharmacogenetics, which examines the single gene interactions with drugs.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
In telecommunications and computing, a data stream is a sequence of digitally encoded coherent signals (packets of data or datapackets) used to transmit or receive information that is in transmission.
In electronics and computer architecture, a data stream determines for which time which data item is scheduled to enter or leave which port of a systolic array, a Reconfigurable Data Path Array or similar pipe network, or other processing unit or block. Often the data stream is seen as the counterpart of an instruction stream, since the von Neumann machine is instruction-stream-driven, whereas its counterpart, the Anti machine is data-stream-driven.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
In addition, when first turned on in these conditions, some non-assisted GPS units may not be able to download the almanac and ephemeris information from the GPS satellites, rendering them unable to function until a clear signal can be received continuously for up to one minute.
An A-GPS receiver can address these problems in several ways, using an Assistance Server:
* The Assistance Server can locate the phone roughly by what cell site it is connected to on the cellular network.
* The Assistance Server has a good satellite signal, and lots of computation power, so it can compare fragmentary signals relayed to it by cell phones, with the satellite signal it receives directly, and then inform the cell phone or emergency services of the cell phone's position.
* It can supply orbital data for the GPS satellites to the cell phone, enabling the cell phone to lock to the satellites when it otherwise could not, and autonomously calculate its position.
* By having accurate, surveyed coordinates for the cell site towers, it can have better knowledge of ionospheric conditions and other errors affecting the GPS signal than the cell phone alone, enabling more precise calculation of position. (See also Wide Area Augmentation System)
Some A-GPS solutions require an active connection to a cell phone (or other data) network to function, in others it simply makes positioning faster and more accurate, but is not required.
As an additional benefit, it can reduce both the amount of CPU and programming required for a GPS Phone by offloading most of the work onto the assistance server. (This is not a large amount for a basic GPS – many early GPSs utilized Intel 80386-class 16MHz CPUs or similar hardware.)
High Sensitivity GPS is an allied technology that addresses some of the same issues in a way that does not require additional infrastructure. However, unlike some forms of A-GPS, high sensitivity GPS cannot provide instant fixes when the phone has been off for some time.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Video logs (vlogs) also often take advantage of web syndication to allow for the distribution of video over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom syndication formats, for automatic aggregation and playback on mobile devices and personal computers
Vlogging saw a strong increase in popularity beginning in 2005. The Yahoo! Videoblogging Group saw its membership increase dramatically in 2005 . The most popular video sharing site to date, YouTube, founded in February 2005, was publicly launched between August and November 2005. The BBC launched their first official video blog in October 2006, with a feature allowing children to name a new Blue Peter puppy. Many open source content management systems, like WordPress or Drupal, enable posting of video content allowing bloggers to host and administer their own video blogging sites. Moreover, convergence of mobile phones with digital cameras allow publishing of video content to the Web almost as it is recorded.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
A strapdown system has a dynamic measurement range several hundred times that required by a gimbaled system. That is, it must integrate the vehicle's attitude changes in pitch, roll and yaw, as well as gross movements. Gimballed systems could usually do well with update rates of 50 to 60 updates per second. However, strapdown systems normally update about 2000 times per second. The higher rate is needed to keep the maximum angular measurement within a practical range for real rate gyros: about 4 milliradians. Most rate gyros are now laser interferometers.
The data updating algorithms ("direction cosines" or "quaternions") involved are too complex to be accurately performed except by digital electronics. However, digital computers are now so inexpensive and fast that rate gyro systems can now be practically used and mass-produced. The Apollo lunar module used a strapdown system in its backup Abort Guidance System (AGS).
Strapdown systems are nowadays commonly used in commercial and tactical applications (arcraft, missiles, etc). However they are still not widespread in applications where superb accuracy is required (like submarine navigation or strategic ICBM guidance).
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
From a technical perspective, a Transaction Processing System (or Transaction Processing Monitor) monitors transaction programs, a special kind of programs. The essence of a transaction program is that it manages data that must be left in a consistent state. E.g. if an electronic payment is made, the amount must be either both withdrawn from one account and added to the other, or none at all. In case of a failure preventing transaction completion, the partially executed transaction must be 'rolled back' by the TPS. While this type of integrity must be provided also for batch transaction processing, it is particularly important for online processing: if e.g. an airline seat reservation system is accessed by multiple operators, after an empty seat inquiry, the seat reservation data must be locked until the reservation is made, otherwise another user may get the impression a seat is still free while it is actually being booked at the time. Without proper transaction monitoring, double bookings may occur. Other transaction monitor functions include deadlock detection and resolution (deadlocks may be inevitable in certain cases of cross-dependence on data), and transaction logging (in 'journals') for 'forward recovery' in case of massive failures.
Transaction Processing is not limited to application programs. The 'journaled file system' provided with IBMs AIX Unix operating system employs similar techniques to maintain file system integrity, including a journal.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Inspired by McLuhan, Neil Postman founded the Program in Media Ecology at New York University in 1971. He described it as
Media ecology looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value; and how our interaction with media facilitates or impedes our chances of survival. The word ecology implies the study of environments: their structure, content, and impact on people.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Some object-oriented databases are designed to work well with object-oriented programming languages such as Python, Java, C#, Visual Basic .NET, C++ and Smalltalk. Others have their own programming languages. ODBMSs use exactly the same model as object-oriented programming languages.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
E-mail spam slowly but exponentially grew for several decades to several billion messages a day. Spam has frustrated, confused, and annoyed e-mail users. Laws against spam have been sporadically implemented, with some being opt-out and others requiring opt in e-mail. The total volume of spam (over 100 billion emails per day as of April 2008) has leveled off slightly in recent years, and is no longer growing exponentially. The amount received by most e-mail users has decreased, mostly because of better filtering. About 80% of all spam is sent by fewer than 200 spammers. Botnets, networks of virus-infected computers, are used to send about 80% of spam. The cost of spam is borne mostly by the recipient, so it is a form of postage due advertising.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Many normal computer users are however still unfamiliar with the term, and most never use it. Instead, "computer virus" is incorrectly used in common parlance and even in the media to describe all kinds of malware, though not all malware are viruses.
Software is considered malware based on the perceived intent of the creator rather than any particular features. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, and other malicious and unwanted software. In law, malware is sometimes known as a computer contaminant, for instance in the legal codes of California, West Virginia, and several other American states.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
It is the applied science of equipment design intended to maximize productivity by reducing operator fatigue and discomfort. The field is also called biotechnology, human engineering, and human factors engineering. Ergonomic research is primarily performed by ergonomists who study human capabilities in relationship to their work demands. Information derived from ergonomists contributes to the design and evaluation of tasks, jobs, products, environments and systems in order to make them compatible with the needs, abilities and limitations of people.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Alternative terms for free software have been a controversial issue among free software users from the late 1990s onwards. Coined in 1983 by Richard Stallman, "free software" is used to describe software which can be used, modified, and redistributed with little or no restriction. These freedoms are formally described in The Free Software Definition, first published in February 1986.
Alternatives for "free software" were sought because some businesses were uncomfortable with the word "free"s association with the ideas of freedom/liberty. A second problem was that the "available at no cost" ambiguity of the word "free" was seen as discouraging business adoption. In a 1998 strategy session in California, "open-source software" was selected by Todd Anderson, Larry Augustin, Jon Hall, Sam Ockman, Christine Peterson, and Eric S. Raymond. Richard Stallman had not been invited. The session was arranged in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator (as Mozilla). Those at the meeting described "open source" as a "replacement label" for free software and founded the Open Source Initiative to promote the term as part of "a marketing program for free software" . Stallman and others object to the term "open-source software" because it does not describe all of the freedoms associated with the free software definition.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Psychosynthesis departed from the empirical foundations of psychology in that it studied a person as a personality and a soul but Assagioli continued to insist that it was scientific. Assagioli developed therapeutic methods other than what was found in psychoanalysis. Although the unconscious is an important part of the theory, Assagioli was careful to maintain a balance with rational, conscious therapeutical work.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
The New Mobility Agenda is an international institution which while virtual and an open collaborative was originally set up by an international working group meeting at the Abbey de Royaumont near Paris with the support of the OECD in Paris in 1974 to challenge old ideas and practices in the field of urban transport through a long term collaborative program of information exchange, education and peer support. The Agenda today draws together the experience, expertise and support of more than four thousand individuals and groups world wide in an open collaborative peer network. One of the original proponents of this approach, Professor Mikoto Usui then director of the OECD Development Centre, referred to it in the founding meeting at the “Abbé de Royaumont as an “invisible college”. Drawing together the experience and expertise of more than four thousand individuals and groups world wide, who are networked via a combination of websites, discussion groups and fora, and collaborative projects, the Agenda takes an approach to transportation planning, policy and practice that has gained considerable force over the last two decades -- provides a leading-edge alternative to earlier (20th century) methods of looking at and providing mobility for people and goods in cities. The Agenda has received prestigious awards for its contributions, including the Stockholm Environment Challenge Prize (2000) and the World Technology Environment Award (2002).
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Cost overrun is defined as excess of actual cost over budget. Cost overrun is also sometimes called "cost escalation," "cost increase," or "budget overrun." However, cost escalation and increases do not necessarily result in cost overruns if cost escalation is included in the budget.
Cost overrun is common in infrastructure, building, and technology projects. One of the most comprehensive studies of cost overrun that exists found that 9 out of 10 projects had overrun, overruns of 50 to 100 percent were common, overrun was found in each of 20 nations and five continents covered by the study, and overrun had been constant for the 70 years for which data were available. For IT projects, an industry study by the Standish Group (2004) found that average cost overrun was 43 percent, 71 percent of projects were over budget, over time, and under scope, and total waste was estimated at US$55 billion per year in the US alone.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Although having its origins in the late 1780s or earlier, the global standardisation of containers and container handling equipment was one of the important innovations in 20th century logistics.
By the 1830s, railroads on several continents were carrying containers that could be transferred to trucks or ships, but these containers were invariably small by today's standards. Originally used for shipping coal on and off barges, 'loose boxes' were used to containerize coal from the late 1780s, on places like the Bridgewater Canal. By the 1840's, iron boxes were in use as well as wooden ones. The early 1900s saw the adoption of closed container boxes designed for movement between road and rail.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
In databases, snapshot isolation is a guarantee that all reads made in a transaction will see a consistent snapshot of the database, and the transaction itself will successfully commit only if no updates it has made conflict with any concurrent updates made since that snapshot.
Snapshot isolation (SI) has been adopted by several major database management systems, such as SQL Anywhere, InterBase, Firebird, Oracle, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server. The main reason for its adoption is that it allows better performance than serializability, yet still avoids the kind of concurrency anomalies that cannot easily be worked around. SI has also been to critique the ANSI SQL-92 standard's definition of isolation levels, as it exhibits none of the "anomalies" that the SQL standard prohibited, yet is not serializable (the anomaly-free isolation level defined by ANSI).
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
In computing, an integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of a source code editor, a compiler and/or interpreter, build automation tools, and (usually) a debugger. Sometimes a version control system and various tools are integrated to simplify the construction of a GUI. Many modern IDEs also have a class browser, an object inspector, and a class hierarchy diagram, for use with object oriented software development.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Database security is the system, processes, and procedures that protect a database from unintended activity. Unintended activity can be categorized as authenticated misuse, malicious attacks or inadvertent mistakes made by authorized individuals or processes. Database security is also a specialty within the broader discipline of computer security.
Traditionally databases have been protected from external connections by firewalls or routers on the network perimeter with the database environment existing on the internal network opposed to being located within a demilitarized zone. Additional network security devices that detect and alert on malicious database protocol traffic include network intrusion detection systems along with host-based intrusion detection systems.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
A reverse proxy or surrogate is a proxy server that is installed within the neighborhood of one or more servers. Typically, reverse proxies are used in front of Web servers. All connections coming from the Internet addressed to one of the Web servers are routed through the proxy server, which may either deal with the request itself or pass the request wholly or partially to the main web servers.
A reverse proxy dispatches in-bound network traffic to a set of servers, presenting a single interface to the caller. For example, a reverse proxy could be used for load balancing a cluster of web servers. In contrast, a forward proxy acts as a proxy for out-bound traffic. For example, an ISP may use a proxy to forward HTTP traffic from its clients to external web servers on the internet; it may also cache the results to improve performance.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
MySQL (pronounced /maɪˌɛskjuːˈɛl/ "my S-Q-L") is a multithreaded, multi-user SQL database management system (DBMS) which has more than 11 million installations. The basic program runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases.
Originally financed in a similar fashion to the JBoss model, MySQL was owned and sponsored by a single for-profit firm, the Swedish company MySQL AB, now a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, which holds the copyright to most of the codebase. The project's source code is available under terms of the GNU General Public License, as well as under a variety of proprietary agreements.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses computers to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses the results of theoretical chemistry, incorporated into efficient computer programs, to calculate the structures and properties of molecules and solids. While its results normally complement the information obtained by chemical experiments, it can in some cases predict hitherto unobserved chemical phenomena. It is widely used in the design of new drugs and materials.
Examples of such properties are structure (i.e. the expected positions of the constituent atoms), absolute and relative (interaction) energies, electronic charge distributions, dipoles and higher multipole moments, vibrational frequencies, reactivity or other spectroscopic quantities, and cross sections for collision with other particles.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Aviation encompasses all the activities relating to airborne devices created by human ingenuity, generally known as aircraft. These activities include the organizations and regulatory bodies as well as the personnel related with the operation of aircraft and the industries involved in airplane manufacture, development, and design.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Liquid inkjet printers very small, exact amounts (generally a few picolitres) of ink onto the media. These droplet of ink will carry a small electrical charge. The situation of the ink on the page is then determined by the accuse of a cathode and electrode between which the ink moves towards the paper. Inkjet printing (and the related bubble-jet technology) are the most general -quality inkjet printers are inexpensive to produce.
Almost all recent inkjet printers are color devices; some, known as photo printers, include extra pigments to better reproduce the color range needed for high-quality photographic prints (and are additionally capable of printing on photographic card stock, as opposed to plain office paper).
Inkjet printers consist of nozzles that create very small ink bubbles that turn into tiny droplets of ink. The dots shaped are the size of tiny pixels. Ink-jet printers can be able to print high fineness text and graphics. They are also more or less silent in operation. Inkjet printers have a much lesser initial cost than do laser printers, but have a much higher cost-per-copy, as the ink needs to be regularly replaced.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Until decimalization in the United Kingdom in 1971, the abbreviation., from solidus, was used to represent a shilling, worth one-twentieth of a Pound genuine, just as d. stood for denarii (pennies) and £ stood and still stands for Libra (pound). Though the shilling and its short form are no longer used, a slang word for shilling, "bob", is still occasionally used in expressions like "a few bobble", i.e. a bit of money.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Sustainable transportation concerns systems, policies, and technologies. It aims for the efficient transit of goods and serivces, and sustainable freight and delivery systems. The design of vehicle-free city planning, along with pedestrian and bicycle frendly design of neighbourhoods is a critical aspect for grassroots activities, as are telework and teleconferencing.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Association football, commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players, and it is the most fashionable sport in the world. It is a ball game played on a rectangular grass or artificial turf field, with a goal at each of the short ends. The purpose of the game is to score by manoeuvring the ball into the opposing goal. In general play, the goalkeeper is the only player permitted to use their hands or arms to propel the ball; the rest of the team usually use their feet to kick the ball into position, occasionally using their torso or head to intercept a ball in mid air. The team that scores the most goals by the end of the match wins. If the score is tied at the end of the game, either a draw is declared or the game goes into extra time and/or a penalty shootout, depending on the format of the competition.
The modern game was codified in England following the formation of The Football Association, whose 1863 Laws of the Game created the foundations for the way the sport is played today. Football is governed internationally by the Federation Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football), commonly known by the acronym FIFA. The most prestigious international football competition is the World Cup, held every four years. This event, the most widely viewed in the world, boasts an audience twice that of the Summer Olympics.
Friday, December 14, 2007
There are array of uses suggested for ginger. A tea brewed from the is a folk medicine for colds. Ginger ale and ginger beer have been suggested as "stomach settlers" for generation in countries where the beverages are made and ginger water was commonly used to avoid heat cramps in the US. Ginger has also been historically used to take care of inflammation which some scientific studies support, though one arthritis trial showed ginger to be no better than a placebo or ibuprofen. Research on rats suggests that ginger may be valuable for treating diabetes.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
without doubt the first sport that comes to mind when one thinks of Indian sports today is cricket. Brought to India by her British colonisers, cricket so captured the nation’s thoughts that observers are more or less agreed that today it is the one religion that unites India.
In cities like Calcutta, with everybody glued to their TV sets, life grinds to a stop the progress of the days the Indian team is playing. One-day gear and test matches stimulate equal eagerness; for together, if the match is being played on Indian earth, which by the way supports spin slightly than pace, you’ll get aptitude crowds and a emotional atmosphere seldom matched anywhere outside the subcontinent. Allegations of murky match fixing and a fixed string of matches where the team managed to “grab defeat from the jaws of victory” notwithstanding, the attractiveness of the game continues to rise. Such is the strength of participation with the game that it even affects India’s international relationships. In the result of the 1999 Kargil war, India unilaterally overhanging cricketing relations with Pakistan. The discuss on whether politics and sports should mix enlivens many a discussion, and is yet unresolved.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
The brave man of the familiar People. It had been an extended time coming. Terribly separated by the issue of slavery, thirty-one million American citizens were in 1860
Called upon to vote for 16th President of the United States. The Democratic Party meets at its National Party Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, in order to choose their candidate in favor of the presidency. Split over slavery, each section, Northern Democrats on the one hand and Southern Democrats on the other, presented its own conflicting proposal for the party platform.
In February 1860, Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi claimed that neither the Congress of the United States nor the territorial parliaments had the control to handle slavery.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
In India the Banyan Tree is consider as National tree. This huge tree overlooks over its neighbors and has the widest reaching roots of all known trees, easily covering several acres. It sends off new shoots from its roots, so that one tree is really a interweave of branches, roots, and trunks. The banyan tree restart and lives for an incredible length of time--thus it is thought of as the everlasting tree.
Its size and leafy shelter are valued in India as a place of relax and mirror image, not to mention defense from the hot sun! It is still the focus and gathering place for local councils and meetings. India has a long history of worship this tree; it figures importantly in many of the oldest stories of the nation.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
With a hazardous brand of humor that has brought him legions of dedicated fans, Sandler's hit as an actor, stand-up comic, writer and producer is matched by his performance and songwriting skills. It is an shocking gift for lyric and melody that is front and center on Adam Sandler's very funny new Warner Bros. Records release What is Your surname featuring 14 new Sandler originals include such classics as The Goat Song, the Lonesome Kicker, Bad Boyfriend and Corduroy Blues.
What is Your Name continues the musical tradition Sandler began with at a standard Pace, Ode to My Carnd the extremely popular The Chanukah Song. With two platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated albums - They're All Gonna Laugh at you and What the Hell Happened to Me - Already to his credit, Sandler goes for a comedy-three peat with what’s Your Name. The move to an all-music format is a normal one, following his 21 city tour last summer, when he perform both creative material and his favorite childhood tunes, backed by a finest rock and roll band.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The superiority of being a team player is one that everyone should enjoy. A team player is someone with good qualities who makes contributions and has the force to motivate each one around him or her. This individuality can be used in many areas such as games, family life, and in the company. You are more expected to be hired in the production if you have and demonstrate the qualities of a team player. As the business climate gets tougher before it gets improved, it is time to hike the talk if you want to develop.
Managers will require all the cooperation they can get. To land a high paying job with a major business you need to be a team player. Having good qualities is one of the most significant characters you can have. Being a team performer thinks of the team as a whole and is not selfish in their views and decisions.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Economics is the learning of making choices. High school and college students all over required to take economic courses in order to achieve a diploma. Why is economics so important because it provides a guide for students for real-world situations Economics is divided into two types microeconomics and macroeconomics. Microeconomics is the study of economics at a slim level. For example absorbed on how a detailed business functions is microeconomics.
Studying the world economy is classified as Macroeconomics; its center on a much broader level. All students must understand the concept of insufficiency. Scarcity is a condition that occurs because society has unlimited wants and needs however the amount of property is limited. Unlimited wants and needs are what encourage us to create goods and services. We are never satisfied therefore we always have a want or need. On the other hand our income is limited.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Around and around it soared in brutal circles, tearing from side to side her animated temples. At a standstill, they did not do anything. Still, they simply laid there with faces of chalk, invalid of all human emotions. She could not look at them in hopes of relieve, for long. The cherry rivers that flowed across her eyes, streamed down her steaming cheeks, made vision impossible.
Life was simply the stack of decayed flesh that enclosed her. From his immortal lips hung the bodies of all those who died struggle for him and all those who had tampered with self luxury. For that, she dammed him for all eternity; in every form he understood she dammed him. He had been her guiding angle and now it became evident to her. No prayer would pass her conditions lips, for this had been his movement she had fought and they had lost other than just a clash.
