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Sheldon Kalnitsky views on Breakfast - Sheldon Kalnitsky never took care of his health. He loved junk food and skipped his breakfast. Like him, many people avoid breakfast, as they have to rush to office. Even in office they would just grab on a cream cheese, muffin, pastry etc. None of these options is a great way to start your day. If you start the day with an empty stomach, your blood-sugar level becomes low. This may lead to eating a pasty or some other unhealthy choice.

Sheldon Kalnitsky became fat which was not a good sign for the type of work he was in. Being a marketing person, he had to meet a lot of people, for that a pleasing personality is needed. After following certain things he started loosing weight. He started eating things that were rich in protein. Look for whole-grain carbs. Look for low-fat dairy or soy options. Look for fiber and nutrients.

In order to have a healthy breakfast, Sheldon Kalnitsky would get up 15 minutes earlier. Start the day with an oatmeal, flaxseed, blueberries or almonds. He would eat Scrambled tofu as it is healthier than scrambled eggs. Other healthy breakfast items are fresh fruit salad, protein shake with extras, eggs with peppers, fresh berries, yogurt, granola, cottage cheese and fruit. Sheldon Kalnitsky started eating healthy breakfast, which helped him to control his weight and work actively throughout the day.

Sheldon Kalnitsky was considered one of the most innovative artists of the early twentieth century. Being a son of an engraver, Sheldon Kalnitsky attended one of the famous schools of arts in London. After finishing his graduation in arts, he started with his brother a studio where they executed designs of other artists. After a few years, he started making his own paintings. He received a prize for one of his paintings. Sheldon Kalnitsky produced murals for public buildings.

Sheldon Kalnitsky loved to do portraits and landscapes. He spent most of his time in Attersee, where he drew inspiration for many of his landscapes and where he painted some of his best known works. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches and other art objects. His work is distinguished by an elegant use of gold backgrounds and mosaic patterns.

Sheldon Kalnitsky painting styles also include Expressionism and Cubism. In Expressionist Art, the artist tries to express certain feelings about some thing. The artists that painted in this style were more concerned with having their paintings express a feeling than in making the painting look exactly like what they were painting. Like that Cubism is a modern art made up mostly of paintings. The paintings are not supposed to look real. The artist uses geometric shapes to show what he is trying to paint. Early cubists used mainly grays, browns, greens and yellows. After 1914, Cubists started to use brighter colors. Cubism was the beginning of the Abstract and Non-objective art styles.

Sheldon Kalnitsky also specializes in Miniature, Madhubani, Warli, Patachitra, Phad, Tribal etc. Miniature painting derived its name from its tiny size and intricate designs. The colors used in the miniatures are extracted from minerals, vegetables, precious stones, indigo, conch shells, pure gold and silver. The fine stroke of brushes conveyed the themes from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Rasamanjiri etc.

Sheldon Kalnitsky loves to work on ceramic paintings. Ceramic painting is an art form indigenous to Vietnam. The idyllic landscape of Vietnam is beautifully depicted in these paintings. Most of the paintings are in the traditional Vietnamese colors: white and blue.

Being an Indian, Sheldon Kalnitsky is fascinated by Batik paintings. He learned different types of paintings like Ganesha, Shiva and many more. Batik painting endeavors to capture the infinite divine essence within its artistic confines. He also works on contemporary Indian art. Indian paintings traditions go back to antiquity, as is evident from the murals of Ajanta, Ellora and other frescoes, the Buddhist palm leaf manuscripts, the Jain texts and the Deccan, Mughal and Kangra schools of miniature Indian painting.

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.

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.

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.

The world is slipping dangerously into protectionism, threatening to strangle global economic recovery, the World Trade Organization said.

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

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.

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.

He looked nervous, even flustered, at first, and some of the prepared comedy was surprisingly lame. That doesn’t matter. Jimmy Fallon’s first few days don’t really reveal how “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” will fare.

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

U.S. bank and thrift industry tallies its first losing quarter since 1990, FDIC reports

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

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.

Washington Learns, created and led by Governor Chris Gregoire, conducted a top to bottom, 18-month review of Washington’s entire education system, its structure and funding. The recommendations developed by Washington Learns will fundamentally change educational expectations, delivery and results.

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

Manitoba’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team will test a new, all-season, state-of-the-art mobile command vehicle near Waterhen Feb. 10 and 11 during a 150-person remote deployment winter exercise, Labour and Immigration Minister Nancy Allan, minister responsible for the Office of the Fire Commissioner, announced today.

“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.

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.

High-speed links vital for the Scottish economy

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”

BLACK LOCUST IS A FAST growing, medium size tree which has been widely planted for windbreaks, soil erosion control, soil stabilization and fence posts. Although it will grow on depleted soils, it grows best on good soils. On poor soils, it is severely attacked by locust borers which frequently kill the tree by tunneling. It sprouts prolifically from root runners and can become a nuisance.

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.

Got safe milk? ARS food safety researchers and their colleagues in northeastern and mid-Atlantic states have teamed up to make sure the answer is always "Yes!"The collaboration with veterinarians, university researchers and others who belong to the Regional Dairy Quality Management Alliance will, among other results, lead to a new set of "best management practices." Dairy producers in 10 states can use those guidelines to minimize the risk of diseases caused by microbes in dairy cows and dairy products.

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

The Securities Division of the Saskatchewan Financial Services Commission issued a Temporary Cease Trade Order today for companies and individuals involved in diamond holdings in the Fort a la Corne area east of Prince Albert. The Order was issued with respect to CMKM Diamonds Inc., its predecessor Casavant Mining Kimberlite International, Urban Armand Joseph Casavant, David DeSormeau and Melvin A. O'Neil. Casavant, DeSormeau and O'Neil are officers, directors and promoters of these companies. The Securities Division is concerned about the trading activities of these companies as well as news releases they have issued about their operations.

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.

At any given time around one third of Australians are in pain.The way we experience pain is very complex and there may be suffering beyond the hurt:
- 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.