LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The sequel to Carmageddon has had its midnight premiere, and Los Angeles transportation officials are hoping the weekend proves as successful as last year's first edition.
A 10-mile stretch of one of the world's busiest freeways was shut down early Saturday, and if all goes according to plan it'll stay that way until a bridge is rebuilt before the Monday morning traffic crunch.
For weeks drivers have been warned to stay away from the segment of Interstate 405 that will be shuttered through the Sepulveda Pass on LA's west side for the entire weekend.
If drivers don't avoid the area, officials warn, a city-wide traffic jam could result. But beyond just scare tactics, city officials have been encouraging Southern Californians to get out and enjoy their own neighborhoods on foot, on bikes or via short drives on surface streets.
During a similar closure last year commuters stayed away from the freeway in droves, the shutdown was considered a success, and crews finished the first phase of the work early.
This time, the contractor faces a penalty if the work isn't done in 53 hours.
"The penalty is $6,000 per lane of freeway, per 10 minutes. Let's assume the entire freeway isn't reopened, that's $60,000 every 10 minutes," Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Dave Sotero told KCBS-TV.
Meanwhile, TV news crews have a plan to avoid a traffic jam in the sky as they cover the shutdown.
Residents complained of low-flying, noisy helicopters hovering nonstop over the region last year.
"It was constant," Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, whose members live in many of the homes closest to the freeway, recently told The Associated Press. "It was a combination of the news media paparazzi and tour operators taking people who wanted to get a picture of the 405."
Although the area gets its share of paparazzi helicopters because of Charlie Sheen and other celebrities who live in the area, Close said they usually go away when the sun sets. During Carmageddon, however, the area is brightly illuminated overnight so construction workers can safely do their jobs.
This time, local television news directors have plans to pool coverage by using video from a single helicopter making limited flights over the freeway, according to Rick Terrell, executive director of the Radio & Television News Association of Southern California.
The participating stations include major broadcasters including KABC-TV, KCBS-TV and KTTV-TV.
The Supreme Court will hear a case Monday which could determine whether cases involving foreign governments committing atrocities in their own countries should be heard in the US court system.
By Rebecca Hamilton,?Reuters / September 30, 2012
Workers cover the US Supreme Court building in Washington Thursday, Sept. 27, with a protective scrim, as work continues on the facade.The Supreme Court is embarking on a new term beginning Monday that could be as consequential as the last one with the prospect a ruling on whether cases involving human rights abuses in foreign countries should be heard in the US.
Alex Brandon/AP
Enlarge
For more than three decades survivors of human rights abuses in foreign countries have turned to US federal courts to seek justice. On Monday the?US Supreme Court?hears a case that could make that impossible.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
The case pits a Nigerian widow against a multinational oil company.?Esther Kiobel?and others say?Royal Dutch Petroleum?(Shell) helped the?Nigerian government?commit human rights violations against her husband, who was executed in 1995. Shell has denied the allegations and argues that cases involving foreign governments committing atrocities in their own countries do not belong in the US court system at all.
That the justices are considering the sweeping question of whether an entire class of lawsuits can be heard in the United States can be traced to briefs filed by three lawyers whose clients aren't even involved in the case.
How their briefs came to be sheds light on one of the most closely watched cases before the Supreme Court this term and shows how the efforts of private lawyers pursuing a public policy goal can have momentous consequences.
A ruling against Kiobel could wipe out lawsuits pending against companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp, Rio Tinto Plc and Nestle, which are accused by private plaintiffs of helping governments violate human rights in?Indonesia,Papua New Guinea?and Ivory Coast, respectively.
Esther Kiobel's husband,?Barinem Kiobel, was arrested in 1994 along with Nobel Peace Prize nominee?Ken Saro-Wiwa?and others. They had spoken out against the government's violent suppression of environmental activists who opposed Shell's oil and gas drilling in?Nigeria. Kiobel was found guilty of murder by a?Nigerian military?court in a trial that the U.S. State Department said lacked due process, and he was hanged in Port Harcourt,?Nigeria, in 1995.
Furniture forms an integral part of an indoor or outdoor space of your house. Finding the right kind of furniture to set the ambience of the place, sounds quite a simple task but nothing can be more complicated than this. However, with a huge variety of luxury designer furniture, it becomes quite easy to simply choose the items that match with the ambience of your home space. The overall elegance of your house is enhanced by the exquisite furnishings in the outdoors which also provide a unique touch to the ambience of your landscape. Therefore, it is needed that you pay full attention to outdoor beautification of your patio, backyard, garden or poolside. Apart from the furniture that you choose for your outdoor space, it is also required that you choose outdoor furnishings accessories that are complimentary to your outdoor area or space.
While purchasing luxury designer furniture for your outdoor space, it is essential to know about the dimensions of your outdoor area which can you prevent from spending unnecessarily on items that may not even suit or fit your backyard. Moreover, furniture is not the only item that can enhance the looks of your backyard. It is also necessary to purchase outdoor furnishing accessories to garnish your patio and also give an aesthetic touch your house. However, while choosing outdoor accessories, your primary consideration should be the material that you choose for your outdoor furniture. It is essential to select the accessories whose material type can sustain the extreme climatic conditions and yet remain intact. Another important factor that you need to consider is your budget. Deciding on your budget can help you in turn to determine the material that you would choose for your patio furnishings.
Keeping in mind the aesthetic beauty of your outdoor space and also the impression that these furnishings can leave on your guest, you need to select items that can complement your luxury design furniture. Moreover, you must not cram your conservatory by picking too many substantial types of equipment and further retain open space to permit the free movement of your guests and visitors. Apart from all these factors, the concept of outdoor furniture is always favored with something that can sustain multi weather conditions and are durable in nature. Therefore, cane has been the rightful choice for millions of homemakers while designing their outdoor space. This kind of material when used in furnishing accessory makes them serve you with multiple benefits and hence prevent you from regretting for selecting it in your furnishing.
About the Author
The author is an expert in article writing and his managing scope relates to various fields such as luxury designer furniture and outdoor furnishings accessories etc.
Use and distribution of this article is subject to our Publisher Guidelines whereby the original author?s information and copyright must be included.
The present scenario is often regarded as very competitive. Indeed it is. There is so much of competition in each and every field. Everybody performs to the best of his/her capabilities to outshine the competitors. However, this very scenario is also called as the ?information age?. IT constantly endeavors hard to simplify the lives of millions of people. It has been doing wonders in several fields of life ever since its inception. One such field is education. Although the present scenario is very competitive yet IT makes it easy for people to find their niche and get skilled in it. Pursuing the career has never been so easy.
Online education (also called as online training) has emerged as a very powerful tool to empower people with sheer work skills and knowledge. Pursuing a career course has become as easy as it has never been. One can pursue a career course online with the help of a computer and internet connection, right from home. Above that the course can be pursued at a very economical price and from a reputed university. Various fields in which IT has made it very easy for people to pursue a course to boost their career are described below-
1. Accounting: Accounting is a field in which there are so many online training courses available for the students.
One such course is ?Sage online qualification?. This online course empowers users with skills for performing various accounting functions. These skills include calculating finances of the company, filing VAT, tracking financial transactions to & from the company account, etc. After pursuing an online accountancy course one can easily fetch a job by the virtue of sheer skills.
2. Information Technology: The gift of IT i.e. the online education system helps students to dodge struggle for taking a plunge into IT industry and excel their career there on. There are several online IT courses which transform students into an IT expert. There are several IT giants which provide quality online education. One such service provider is Microsoft. It provides several online IT courses such as MCSE, MCTS, MCSA and many more. These courses are very well recognized by employers throughout the world and hence help in fetching a decent job quite easily.
3. Language Training: Language training is a course which is experiencing a great high as of today. Due to the advancement in Science and technology the world is shrinking and hence is increasing a demand to learn new languages as they are the only barrier for a free flow of ideas and thoughts. Through online language courses millions of people benefit every year. ?
4. Human Resources: Human Resources Management is considered as the foundation of any and every organization. It is a sector which is very rewarding and hence people get tempted towards it. Several online education service providers help potential employees to get into this field by providing quality education. One such service provider is Sage. It provides various ?Sage eLearning course? to train people in the field of HR. Through these courses people get skilled in storing employees? data securely, tracking their growth, recording their leaves, and many other HR functions.
(Reuters) - U.S. health regulators on Friday approved Abbott Laboratories Inc's blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira for the treatment of moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Humira for use by adults to help control the chronic condition once immunosuppressant medicines, such as corticosteroids, have proved ineffective.
Humira, by far Abbott's biggest product with annual sales of about $8 billion and still growing, is already approved to treat a number of inflammatory diseases. In addition to rheumatoid arthritis, the medicine is approved for psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn's disease, plaque psoriasis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis.
Morningstar analyst Damien Conover said the latest approval "will help to continue building the franchise" and could eventually add annual revenue approaching $500 million.
Ulcerative colitis, a chronic disease that causes inflammation and ulcers in the inner lining of the large intestine, affects about 620,000 Americans, according to the National Institutes of Health.
"Each patient with ulcerative colitis experiences the disease differently, and treatment must be adjusted to meet each individual's needs," Donna Griebel, of the FDA's Division of Gastroenterology and Inborn Errors Products, said in a statement.
"Today's approval provides an important new treatment option for patients who have had an inadequate response to conventional therapy," she added.
Humira should only continue to be used in patients who have shown evidence of clinical remission after eight weeks of therapy, the FDA said.
Abbott shares were down 65 cents, or nearly 1 percent, at $68.67 on the New York Stock Exchange.
(Reporting by Bill Berkrot; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and city leaders today announced plans for the New York Wheel, a new attraction that promises to enhance the beauty, history, and significance of New York Harbor.
A rendering of the planned New York Wheel
The wheel will be built on the northeastern side of Staten Island and offer city residents and tourists views of the Lower and Midtown Manhattan skylines, the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn, and the New York Harbor. At 625 feet, or 60 stories, it will be the world?s tallest observation wheel.
?The New York Wheel is destined to become one of the City?s ? and the world?s ? great landmark attractions,? said Richard A. Marin, President and CEO of the New York Wheel LLC. ?There are very few opportunities in life to get involved with a project of this magnitude. We believe that the Wheel will quickly become an iconic fixture and we are proud and excited to bring it to Staten Island, New York City, and the Tri-State area.?
The New York Wheel project was proposed in response to the New York City Economic Development Corp?s request for bids for projects that would increase economic growth, boost tourism, and create jobs on Staten Island. The free Staten Island Ferry already attracts over two million tourists each year.
?This historic project promises to have an enormous positive impact on Staten Island and New York City overall ? creating jobs, increasing tourism, and encouraging small business growth,? said Staten Island Borough President James P. Molinaro. ?The construction and subsequent operation of the Wheel will create hundreds of jobs, and will also help to bolster the greater Staten Island economy, with Wheel visitors supporting local restaurants and shops. Every effort is being made to work with local Staten Island businesses to make this project a success.?
The New York Wheel will feature a large Terminal building that will feature exhibitions about New York City history, alternative energy, and environmental sustainability; the site also includes significant open green space. Construction plans for the Wheel and the Terminal building will strive for Platinum LEED certification, the highest rating of sustainable building today.
The New York Wheel will collaborate with Cornell?s Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Johnson and the global relief and development agency CARE to make the exhibit a high tech, state-of-the-art expo about worldwide sustainability. ?Visitors to the New York Wheel will see green building and design, next-generation green materials, low- and no-carbon energy technologies, and the green collar economy at work. We will highlight the growing influence that entrepreneurship, innovation and technology commercialization is having on solving some of our most pressing problems,? said Mark Milstein, Director of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise.
The New York Wheel is an important part of the City?s greater urban waterfront renewal effort, which includes the reopening of Governor?s Island, the High Line, and Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Among the architects, engineers, designers, and consultants of the New York Wheel are: Starneth, B.V., an engineering company specializing in giant observation wheels and structures and builders of the London Eye; and Perkins Eastman, an international architecture, urban design, and interior design firm. Broadwall Consulting Services acts as the New York Wheel?s Construction Consultant. Construction on the New York Wheel is expected to begin in early 2014 with a grand opening scheduled for early 2016.
The Wheel will feature thirty-six capsules, each carrying up to 40 passengers.
Chad Billingsley was ruled out for the season a while ago, but the Dodgers right-hander is trying to determine if he?ll need Tommy John elbow surgery and the 12-18 month recovery timetable that comes with it.
Billingsley has a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament, but was able to play catch regularly for the past week and Ken Gurnick of MLB.com reports that he ?now will ramp up to see if the ligament can withstand the rigors of pitching.?
Any hope that Billingsley can avoid going under the knife and continue to pitch effectively with a partially torn elbow ligament stems from his receiving two different platelet-rich plasma injections that are intended to aid the healing process.
After a very disappointing 2011 season Billingsley bounced back with a 3.55 ERA and 128/45 K/BB ratio in 150 innings before being shut down in late August. He?s under contract for $11 million next season and $12 million in 2014, with a $14 million option or $3 million buyout for 2015.
Only hours following Apple CEO Tim Cook's open letter to customers regarding Maps on iOS 6, Apple has added a featured box in the App store for users to "find apps for your iPhone" that takes you to a section devoted to maps apps.
This is a very impressive and humble move by Apple. Apple is typically a rather arrogant company, so Tim Cook's letter and this new section of the App Store show a side of Apple that is willing to admit fault and do what's needed to improve their users' experience.
Electronic Arts continues to beef up its cloud-based gaming offerings. Today it was announced that it is buying ESN, developers of the Planet web-based games framework, for an undisclosed sum. The two companies had already been working together, namely on Battlelog, an online social-web component for EA's Battlefield 3. The news was announced on ESN's blog.
Google's Niantic Labs have pushed out a new app called Field Trip, which simply pops up location-specific information cards as you wander or drive around town. It's vaguely Google Nowish in its predictions, and provides several channels of content, such as historic places and events, lifestyle, food and drink, cool and unique places, and plenty more. There's plenty of control over how many and what kind of notifications you get for this app through its various settings, so no worries about getting too annoyed with the app or having your battery drained into nothingness. Information can also be relayed over audio if you have a Bluetooth or wired headset plugged in. Content partners include big names like the Food Network, Zagat, Cool Hunting, and plenty of others.
Unfortunately, Field Trip is currently only available in the U.S., but it still looks pretty awesome. I'd love to see something similar that uses voice instead, so you could leave your phone on the table during a conversation and have relevent Wikipedia articles pop up automatically as you talk. It's always weird spending the minute or two looking stuff up only to find the conversation has drifted somewhere else entirely.
Anyway, it looks pretty sweet, and it's free to boot. iOS users will be able to get in on the fun shortly too. I hear they're having trouble getting around these days.
As the nights get longer we?re in the run in to Christmas and the party season ? but before that there are opportunities every evening of the week for great Big Nights In with friends and family. Which means great opportunities for sales of food and drink and other treats for sharing.
A key ingredient of a Big Night In is modern snacks that enable consumers to recreate the cinema experience at home, without having to move far from the sofa. Butterkist offer a range of new formats including the family sharing carton, and their new-look range has a strong connection to the cinema experience.
The key to a Big Night In display is to ensure the product mix caters to all tastes, including sweet and savoury. If they want both in one pack, Tangerine Confectionery?s newly re-launched Butterkist popcorn offers a brand new product, Sweet & Salted, with individual pieces tasting of sweet and salt.
For larger-scale celebrations, October and November contain Diwali, Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night, each one a great occasion for a party. This year Diwali Day falls on Tuesday 13 November, and Halloween and Guy Fawkes? Night are on the same dates as every year, 31 October (Wednesday this time) and 5 November (Monday.) Catch our feature in this issue on Bonfire Night and Halloween.
Last year?s Royal Wedding long weekend was a bonanza for Home Entertaining and Big Nights In, but it was just the start. 2012 has been a whopper of a year with the Diamond Jubilee, the UEFA European 2012 football championship and the London Olympics and Paralympics keeping the nation and their friends and family on the edge of their sofas.
Last year four fifths of consumers told Mintel that they ?would probably? watch some of the events at home with their immediate family, while over a third would buy drinks and snacks for entertaining at home during these events. The BBC had hoped that the Olympics would do for digital in 2012 what the Coronation did for TV in 1953. As it turned out, the BBC had a record Olympic TV reach, with 52m UK viewers, the largest TV audience for a major event for at least 10 years.
And the party isn?t over yet: we?ve plenty of sporting events and other excuses for Big Nights In in the months to come. The lesson is for manufacturers, brands and retailers alike to tap into consumers? sense of enthusiasm for such big events by offering convenience and simplicity, taking the hassle out of entertaining, especially given that two fifths of consumers find entertaining at home stressful.
Enterprise IT ISVs in need of a method of rapidly building market awareness of new products should carefully consider designating a product spokesperson. This product spokesperson should be charged with promoting new products through a variety of media, including:
Print, Direct Mail
Online Web Sites
Social Media
Conferences
Customer Events, etc
Where an ISV is long on technology, but lacking as regards an understanding of marketing, the need to take this leadership step for a product may elude senior management. Missing this opportunity to designate product leadership often results in a much slower ? and more challenging ? product launch. After all, someone needs to take charge to ensure that a distinct, and consistent message is delivered to markets. Further, this individual needs to create the position papers, white papers, and other high level collateral that is required to create a stir (meaning interest) around a product. Of course, interest will, inevitably, result in engagement with prospects, perhaps in the form of incoming inquiries, or, perhaps in the form of attendance at seminars and other product presentation venues.
Where it is not possible to dedicate head count entirely to this set of tasks, then the tasks can certainly be split among a number of senior managers. However, any/all public announcements, presentations, communications, must be handled uniformly and in one consistent voice. In fact, availing of a third party communications firm can generally suffice to ensure that a product launch proceeds entirely along these lines. Answers to important questions can be fielded from engineering, finance, senior management, etc.; however the position piece that includes these answers must be crafted by a single writer who either establishes the market message, or adds to it, as required. Opting for many different voices speaking to the same topics ought to be entirely avoided as the end result of this type of babble is market confusion and ambiguity ? two conditions that ought to be avoided at almost any cost.
Once product leadership has been designated, then the management team should shift its scrutiny to proofing a communications plan for a product to ensure that every appropriate medium is served with a ?right? message. Partners, collaborators and influential individuals should be informed of the product and included in the review process to ensure that a best effort has been made.
If your business is set to launch a product, but you lack the internal resources to shoulder the marketing communications burden that will have to ensue, then you ought to secure the services of a third party to work with you as you traverse this phase of product development.
IMB Enterprises, Inc. has the resources to successfully execute on this type of requirement. Please contact us to learn further. You can call Ira Michael Blonder at +1 631-673-2929 to further a discussion about our services plan. You may also email Ira at imblonder@imbenterprises.com.
?IMB Enterprises, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2012 All Rights Reserved
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, dns@raramuridesign.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turks would prefer to see incumbent Abdullah Gul as their next president if they had to choose between him and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a Turkish opinion poll showed on Wednesday.
The results of the survey by Turkish pollster MetroPOLL suggest Erdogan could face some public resistance in achieving his goal of taking charge of a newly-constituted executive presidency in two years time.
Gul's seven-year term expires in 2014 and the survey of political attitudes showed nearly 60 percent of people thought he should be a candidate in the next election.
Asked who they would vote for if they had to choose between Gul and Erdogan, 50.9 percent said Gul and 22.7 percent said Erdogan. Another 16.1 percent said they did not know and 10.3 percent did not give an answer.
The gap between the two leaders narrowed sharply if respondents were given a free choice of presidential candidates. In that case, 20.5 percent chose Gul, 17.8 percent Erdogan and 2 percent the leader of the largest opposition CHP party.
The MetroPOLL survey was conducted between September 14-19 in 27 provinces with 1,275 people. It had a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percent.
The survey, which coincided with intensified conflict between the state and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, also showed 67.1 percent of respondents would approve of the closure of the parliamentary pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).
Many Turks regard the BDP as having close ties to the PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. Turkish courts have banned and shut down previous pro-Kurdish political parties.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the separatist PKK took up arms against the state in 1984 and the fighting in recent months has been the most intense in more than a decade.
(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall)
After weeks in which the fate of the Senate simmered at nearly even odds of flipping for Republicans or remaining in Democratic control, the outlook has shifted dramatically in the Democrats' favor. The incumbent party now has an 80 percent chance of retaining its majority, according to the Signal's prediction model.
The break is largely due to critical races in Missouri, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Virginia, all of which have favored the Republican at some point in the last month and now favor the Democratic candidate.
?
The cards appeared heavily stacked in the Republicans' favor going in to this election season. The Democrats currently control the Senate, but they have only 30 returning senators to the Republicans' 37 returning senators among the two-thirds of the chamber not up for reelection this cycle. That, combined with strong anti-incumbent currents in the electorate, presented an uphill battle for the Democratic Party.
The trouble for the Republicans began with Missouri with Republican nominee Todd Akin's comments parsing different types of rape. This had been a likely pickup for? Republicans, given the unpopularity of Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill. The prediction markets wavered on this race given the uncertainty as to whether Akin would be forced to withdraw, but have moved in McCaskill's favor as the likelihood that Akin will be replaced has drifted to 0.
That shift alone was enough to throw the fate of the Senate into turmoil, because it added one more variable to an already complicated list of scenarios. The frontrunner in Maine, independent Angus King, has not said which party he will caucus with if elected. In the event of a tie, control will go to whichever party wins the White House.
Next, we have a roller coaster in Wisconsin. Democratic candidate Tammy Baldwin initially looked strong against a field of Republican possibilities. Then, the strongest of those, former governor Tommy Thompson, won the primary. For a while, he held a commanding lead, dominating the polling after his primary win. A series of polls in mid-September demonstrated a massive surge for Baldwin, however, and the markets have responded accordingly.
The Massachusetts senatorial race, the most anticipated senatorial contest of the election, has been close all along. The incumbent, Republican Scott Brown, faces a formidable opponent in Elizabeth Warren. The state is heavily Democratic, and that party identification may prove to be the tiebreaker for Warren, who has pulled ahead in recent polling and is now 61.6 percent likely to take the Republican held seat.
The Virginia senatorial race pits former senator and former governor George Allen against former governor Tim Kaine. Kaine, the Democrat, has pulled ahead in this race in concert with Obama's odds in the Old Dominion. Kaine is now 66.8 percent likely to carry the open Democratic seat that retiring senator Jim Webb captured from Allen six years ago. Obama has a 73.9 percent chance to repeat in the state he narrowly won in 2008.
Follow the state-by-state and overall senatorial predictions in real time with PredictWise.com.
David Rothschild has a Ph.D. in applied economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Follow him on Twitter @DavMicRot
It's a familiar saying in the world of oceanography: Don't put anything over the side of the ship that you're not willing to lose.
Jenan Kharbush, a marine chemistry graduate student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, learned that the hard way on a recent expedition cruise to the Tonga Trench in the South Pacific when a camera and bottle collecting samples and pictures disappeared forever into the deep.
The Tonga Trench is the second-deepest trench in the world, reaching 35,700 feet (about 10,900 meters) at its deepest point. (The Mariana Trench off the coast of Guam is the deepest trench in the world, measured 35,756 feet (10,890 m) at its deepest point.)
"It's hard to get your head around that depth ? that's the same distance from sea level that planes fly," Kharbush told OurAmazingPlanet.
The mission aimed to explore the ecosystem that exists in the trench under intense pressures and at low temperatures, particularly to gain some understanding of the microbial world of the deep. [Strangest Places Where Life Is Found on Earth]
"We understand very little about microbes' role in cycling nutrients and carbon in the ocean," Kharbush said. "We are still trying to understand how microbes take stuff in and recycle it or export carbon to the deep ocean ? something that's important in today's world as carbon in the atmosphere increases."
Other people on the expedition were interested in finding out more about the physiological adaptations that microbes use to live in such a harsh environment.
Data from the deep
Unlike many oceanographic ventures, the student-scientists had just a few days to do their work. The whole trip lasted just six days ? one to cruise from Apia, Samoa, to the ocean over the trench, three to do all their research, and two to continue on to Fiji, where they disembarked the vessel Revelle. The cruise took about 40 people, half of them scientists.
Once over the trench, the science team worked around the clock to get their samples and data from the depths where the water was a frosty 34 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) ? close to freezing. Normally, oceanographers put something on a wire and lower it down to gather water samples, but the depths of the trench made this impossible ? there's no wire 30,000 feet (9,000 m) long. So the team used a deep-sea camera with bottles attached that sunk itself to the bottom, gathered pictures and samples, then closed the bottles and released its ballast weights to rise up again.
The whole system went down three times for about 8 hours and was programmed ahead of time, Kharbush said. When the camera popped up, the scientists looked all around the ship but it was a challenge to find the small instrument in 15-foot (4.5 m) waves. The instrument has a radio transmitter, but the ship ? a giant hunk of metal ? interfered with the signal.
Fortunately, the team was able to retrieve the bottles and camera each time ? until the final sample. They had baited the bottles, hoping to get better pictures and samples of creatures in the deep. The bottles and camera never returned to the surface on the last try and probably collapsed under the pressure, Kharbush said.
?"The bottles have a limit for how long they can withstand that pressure," she said. "It's a real bummer because that last deployment would have provided the most interesting footage and samples."
All is not lost, though: The team gathered data from the other three deployments, and other science experiments were done on the ship, including one that recorded ambient sound in the deep ocean and another that brought back 5-foot (1.5 m) cores of mud from 30,000 feet.
Not a day at the beach
The cores and water samples had to immediately be stored at pressures equivalent to the deep sea, and at fridgelike temperatures to keep the microbes intact and alive to be studied.
"You can't take stuff like that back on the airplane," Kharbush said. "There's just not enough dry ice around to keep it cold, so it comes back with the ship." Once the samples return to the lab at Scripps, the team will start to poke around in the water column and sediment to see what microorganisms might be dwelling there.
Kharbush said that when she talks about the scientific voyages, her friends and family sometimes imagine a poolside margarita instead of days and nights of intense work.
"When I tell people I'm going on a cruise, they think it's a floating island and it's relaxing and fun," she said. "It still is fun, but people have no idea that we're working for 24 hours per day and it's intense."
Copyright 2012 OurAmazingPlanet, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Alaska HVAC License and Certification Requirements
Alaska does not require HVAC technicians to be certified or licensed to be employed in the state. Alaska does require HVAC contractors to be licensed.
Alaska classifies HVAC contractors under their Mechanical Administrator License which includes the following sub-classifications:
Heating, Cooling, and Process Piping
Unlimited HVAC/Sheet Metal
Residential HVAC
Mechanical Systems Temperature Control
Unlimited Refrigeration
Unlimited Commercial and Residential Plumbing
Residential Plumbing and Hydronic Heating
There are two paths to HVAC contractor approval in Alaska with varying requirements. Following are the paths and requirements:
Licensure by Examination Requirements
Notarized Application
Application Fee of $50
License Fee of $250
Resume including education and work experience in your specialty.
Certificate in Support of Applicant?s Experience and Qualifications form completed by three professionals in your field of specialty. These references are not limited to residents of Alaska. You can use references from any US State.
Official transcripts of your education in the HVAC field. Transcripts must be sent from the school?s official records department.
Passing the PSI Exam.
Licensure by Credentials Requirements
Notarized Application
$50 Application Fee
$250 License Fee
Resume of educational and employment history in field you are seeking licensure.
Certificate in Support of Applicant?s Experience and Qualifications from any state. These must be individuals you have worked with directly.
Educational transcripts for the licensing specialty sent directly to the department.
Verification of an active license from any other state. Must be in an identical or relevant licensing category. Information must be sent directly to the licensing department by the other state?s licensing department.
Even within the realm of writing-about-statistics, there are things I can say in a blog that are much more difficult to include in an academic article. Blogging gives me freedom.
But I want to distinguish between two different sorts of frankness.
1. Obnoxiousness: In a blog I can write, ?I hate X? as rudely as I?d like without needing to justify myself.
2. Openness: In a blog I can write about the limitations of my work. It?s a real challenge to discuss limitations in a scholarly article, as we?re always looking over our shoulder at what referees might think. Sure, sometimes I can get away with writing ?Survey weighting is a mess,? but my impression is that most scholarly articles are relentlessly upbeat. Sort of like how a magazine article typically will have a theme and just plug it over and over. In a blog we can more easily admit uncertainty.
Overall, I think blogs are more celebrated for feature 1 above (the freedom to say what you really feel, to be rude, partisan, and politically incorrect), but I think feature 2 (the freedom to express uncertainty) is important too.
An up-close look at the protoplanet Vesta taken by the Dawn spacecraft reveals signs of water on this oversized asteroid in the middle of the solar system, scientists reported Thursday in the journal Science.
Vesta floats in the middle of the asteroid belt that fills the gap between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. That doughnut of rocky rubble might have coalesced into a whole planet if Jupiter's gravity hadn't gotten in the way. Instead, Vesta's growth was stunted at the protoplanet stage.
Because Earth must have gone through the same developmental stages ? and because Vesta's rocks haven't been totally churned up by volcanic processes ? the giant asteroid provides valuable clues as to what our planet's early history might have looked like. Scientists have studied meteors strongly believed to be fragments of Vesta that fell to Earth, but haven't had conclusive proof that the two were linked ? until now.
Researchers scanning Vesta's surface with Dawn's gamma ray and neutron detector were able to definitively link the protoplanet to those Earth meteorites by examining the ratios of iron to silicon and to oxygen. The detector charts the abundance of elements like hydrogen, oxygen and silicon by analyzing the distribution of neutrons and gamma radiation emitted when cosmic rays smash into the surface.
Cameras and spectrometers on Earth have already taught planetary scientists much about Vesta's surface. But those neutron and gamma ray signals can't be picked up by detectors on Earth.
"That's the most important result returned by the entire mission," said Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist at MIT who was not involved in the studies. "That instrument can only be successful when it's up close and personal. It's a measure that could only be made right there at Vesta."
Even as it confirmed a long-held theory, the detector turned up a surprise find: Parts of Vesta's surface contained unusually high levels of hydrogen. Though researchers can't say what molecular form it's in, the amount of hydrogen picked up in parts of the surface would be enough to support 400 parts per million of water, a likely hydrogen-containing compound. (By comparison, rocks brought back by the Apollo missions contained 50 parts per million.)
The find caught researchers off guard. If water is anywhere, it typically clings to the polar regions, not at the much-warmer equator.
On Vesta, "the picture you have is almost the reverse," said Thomas Prettyman, an Albuquerque-based scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, who led one of two studies published in Science.
Prettyman and his colleagues wondered whether cosmic rays had deposited protons ? which are basically just hydrogen ions ? onto Vesta's surface. But they concluded there weren't enough cosmic rays hitting Vesta to account for all of the hydrogen.
The second study provided a potential answer. A team led by Brett Denevi, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., scrutinized unusual pits marring Vesta's terrain. They weren't craters, because they lacked the distinctive raised rim caused by impacts on the surface. In fact, Denevi said, they looked very much like Martian pits thought to be caused by water vapor escaping the Red Planet's surface.
"The expectation was a dry body, but that turned out not to be true," Denevi said.
The scientists think water-rich asteroids once pummeled Vesta, layering hydrated minerals onto the protoplanet's surface. Later, other asteroids smashing into the surface heated up the rocks and caused the water trapped inside to evaporate, leaving the telltale pits behind.
"It all fits," Binzel said. "It's a very conclusive case."
Dawn, which was built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Ca?ada-Flintridge, left Vesta's orbit Sept. 4 and is now heading to Ceres, an icy dwarf planet in the asteroid belt.
We're live in London (and New York, and multiple locations in Canada) for today's iPhone 5 launch. Having a time zone advantage over other Apple fans, iPhone 5 buyers in the UK were able to get their hands on the coveted device from 8am BST this morning (3am EDT, 12am PDT), and the Mobile Nations team was on the ground at Apple's Regent Street store to witness the launch first-hand, as over 2,000 queued on the streets of London. Check out our video report above, and stay tuned for more launch coverage throughout the day!
Contact: Julie Newberg julie.newberg@asu.edu 480-727-3116 Arizona State University
Mikania micrantha, known as mile-a-minute weed or 'forest killer,' is an exotic, invasive species that spreads quickly, covering crops, smothering trees and rapidly altering the environment
TEMPE (Sept. 21, 2012) - It's called mile-a-minute weed or "forest killer." Mikania micrantha is an exotic, invasive species that spreads quickly, covering crops, smothering trees and rapidly altering the environment.
Researchers at Arizona State University are spearheading a four-year research project that will explore what factors cause people and the environment to be vulnerable to rapid environmental change, such as an invasion by Mikania. Study findings likely will serve as a harbinger of the future as humans increasingly experience abrupt, extreme conditions associated with climate change, said Sharon J. Hall, the study's co-principal investigator and Arizona State University School of Life Sciences associate professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
"There are many communities that have to deal with and adapt to rapid change. Mikania is just one example. We're looking at how social and ecological forces in communities make them more resistant or vulnerable to rapid environmental change," Hall said. "Mikania is considered one of the world's worst invader weeds, and it is having a significant impact on agriculture in India and China. If there are crop species, it will grow over them. It grows extremely fast, up and over trees, as quickly as three inches per day."
The study, "Feedbacks Between Human Community Dynamics and Socioecological Vulnerability in a Biodiversity Hotspot," examines how the social and natural ecosystem surrounding Chitwan National Park of Nepal is being threatened by invasive plant species. It is funded by a $1,449,521 grant from the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems program of the National Science Foundation.
Researchers will conduct the study in an area covering approximately 20 square miles in forests surrounding Chitwan National Park, a protected area that is home to many endangered species, including Bengal tiger and one-horned rhinoceros. The park borders populous communities and forests that the people use in their daily lives.
The study will also examine what people are doing to spread Mikania and how the plant affects people's lives. Collaborators on the study include: Abigail York, co-principal investigator and ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change assistant professor; Li An, San Diego State University; Dirgha Ghimire, University of Michigan; Jennifer Glick, ASU School of Social and Family Dynamics professor; and Sean Murphy, CABI, an international non-profit organization focused on solving agricultural and environmental problems through scientific expertise.
"What sets our research apart from most previous work on invasive species and human populations is that we are taking an integrated approach to examining the environment, people, and society at many different levels: individuals, households, landscapes, community governance organizations, and so-called 'non-family organizations' like marketplaces/stores, schools and employers," said Scott Yabiku, the study's principal investigator and ASU School of Social and Family Dynamics associate professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Researchers are integrating a holistic, use-inspired approach into their study by observing and documenting the problem, using experimentation to tease apart driving forces, and implementing an intervention to reduce the spread of the species throughout the 21 community forests that border Chitwan National Park. Examining how people affect the forest's health and how the forest affects resident's livelihood will vary from an individual level to how forest management groups are addressing the problem.
"Not only are we thoroughly studying the social and ecological system surrounding the Chitwan National Park, we will also conduct experiments that test if an educational intervention with community forest groups can slow the spread of invasive species," Yabiku said. "At the end of the project, we'll implement this intervention in all remaining forest groups in the study area in the hopes that it has an impact on the well-being of the forests that these people rely on."
Mikania is a challenging adversary that can regenerate from dropping a small piece onto the soil. Possible interventions that may be implemented include carefully bagging the plant before removing it from the forest. Another practice that bears examination is use of fire in forest management, as this activity creates a nutrient rich environment that may encourage the spread of Mikania.
###
Contact:
Julie Newberg
Arizona State University
julie.newberg@asu.edu
(480) 727-3116
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Julie Newberg julie.newberg@asu.edu 480-727-3116 Arizona State University
Mikania micrantha, known as mile-a-minute weed or 'forest killer,' is an exotic, invasive species that spreads quickly, covering crops, smothering trees and rapidly altering the environment
TEMPE (Sept. 21, 2012) - It's called mile-a-minute weed or "forest killer." Mikania micrantha is an exotic, invasive species that spreads quickly, covering crops, smothering trees and rapidly altering the environment.
Researchers at Arizona State University are spearheading a four-year research project that will explore what factors cause people and the environment to be vulnerable to rapid environmental change, such as an invasion by Mikania. Study findings likely will serve as a harbinger of the future as humans increasingly experience abrupt, extreme conditions associated with climate change, said Sharon J. Hall, the study's co-principal investigator and Arizona State University School of Life Sciences associate professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
"There are many communities that have to deal with and adapt to rapid change. Mikania is just one example. We're looking at how social and ecological forces in communities make them more resistant or vulnerable to rapid environmental change," Hall said. "Mikania is considered one of the world's worst invader weeds, and it is having a significant impact on agriculture in India and China. If there are crop species, it will grow over them. It grows extremely fast, up and over trees, as quickly as three inches per day."
The study, "Feedbacks Between Human Community Dynamics and Socioecological Vulnerability in a Biodiversity Hotspot," examines how the social and natural ecosystem surrounding Chitwan National Park of Nepal is being threatened by invasive plant species. It is funded by a $1,449,521 grant from the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems program of the National Science Foundation.
Researchers will conduct the study in an area covering approximately 20 square miles in forests surrounding Chitwan National Park, a protected area that is home to many endangered species, including Bengal tiger and one-horned rhinoceros. The park borders populous communities and forests that the people use in their daily lives.
The study will also examine what people are doing to spread Mikania and how the plant affects people's lives. Collaborators on the study include: Abigail York, co-principal investigator and ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change assistant professor; Li An, San Diego State University; Dirgha Ghimire, University of Michigan; Jennifer Glick, ASU School of Social and Family Dynamics professor; and Sean Murphy, CABI, an international non-profit organization focused on solving agricultural and environmental problems through scientific expertise.
"What sets our research apart from most previous work on invasive species and human populations is that we are taking an integrated approach to examining the environment, people, and society at many different levels: individuals, households, landscapes, community governance organizations, and so-called 'non-family organizations' like marketplaces/stores, schools and employers," said Scott Yabiku, the study's principal investigator and ASU School of Social and Family Dynamics associate professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Researchers are integrating a holistic, use-inspired approach into their study by observing and documenting the problem, using experimentation to tease apart driving forces, and implementing an intervention to reduce the spread of the species throughout the 21 community forests that border Chitwan National Park. Examining how people affect the forest's health and how the forest affects resident's livelihood will vary from an individual level to how forest management groups are addressing the problem.
"Not only are we thoroughly studying the social and ecological system surrounding the Chitwan National Park, we will also conduct experiments that test if an educational intervention with community forest groups can slow the spread of invasive species," Yabiku said. "At the end of the project, we'll implement this intervention in all remaining forest groups in the study area in the hopes that it has an impact on the well-being of the forests that these people rely on."
Mikania is a challenging adversary that can regenerate from dropping a small piece onto the soil. Possible interventions that may be implemented include carefully bagging the plant before removing it from the forest. Another practice that bears examination is use of fire in forest management, as this activity creates a nutrient rich environment that may encourage the spread of Mikania.
###
Contact:
Julie Newberg
Arizona State University
julie.newberg@asu.edu
(480) 727-3116
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LONDON (Reuters) - Japan's Nomura has cut back teams advising on stock market listings and those covering the healthcare industry as it begins to axe about 100 jobs in its European investment banking division, three people familiar with the situation said.
The bank is slashing $1 billion in costs as rocky markets bite, forcing it to pull back after an aggressive overseas expansion in 2008. As part of that, job cuts were widely expected to hit Europe, the Middle East and Africa hard.
About 100 people will leave the region's investment banking division, one of the people said. That department houses teams that advise on mergers and acquisitions in a variety of sectors, on flotations and on bond issues.
Nomura has around 4,000 staff in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
Some jobs have already gone this week, with five people cut in the equity capital markets (ECM) team, and another five in the team advising healthcare companies on corporate finance, the three sources said.
Nomura declined to comment.
Most of the ECM and healthcare bankers who left were junior, two of the sources said.
Senior bankers have also left this week, however. Guy Douglas, Nomura's co-head of capital markets for acquisition and leveraged finance, has gone, Reuters LPC reported earlier on Friday.
The bank is cutting in Dubai too, while regions outside EMEA have not been immune either. Nomura's head of debt capital markets and debt syndicate for Asia, excluding Japan, has left, IFR reported on Friday.
The Japanese bank is expected to target other departments too, such as equities trading, where it is focusing its efforts on one trading platform instead of two.
The cost cuts are Nomura's second big restructuring in a year, and are primarily targeted at its loss-making overseas operations.
The bank has struggled to make its international expansion work ever since it snapped up the Asian and European units of the now defunct Lehman Brothers in 2008, though many rival investment banks are also slashing jobs as weak markets and stalling deals hurt revenues.
(Reporting by Sarah White and Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
As the nights get longer we?re in the run in to Christmas and the party season ? but before that there are opportunities every evening of the week for great Big Nights In with friends and family. Which means great opportunities for sales of food and drink and other treats for sharing.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 21-Sep-2012
Share ]