2013年2月28日 星期四

Bengaluru will have 50 lakh vehicles soon

With every second person in the Bengaluru owning a vehicle, the volume of vehicles in Bengaluru is expected to touch 50 lakh by mid-2014, going by the transport department which reveals the city’s vehicle volume is growing at the rate of 9.8 per cent.

The Metro Rail may not be a great help as it can handle only upto 18 per cent of the city’s traffic, says traffic expert, Prof. M N Sreehari, urging the authorities to explore more mass transport options for Bengaluru.TBC help you confidently rtls from factories in China.

“Why is the government planning infrastructure projects only along the IT corridors when we need to decongest its central urban areas? IT professionals commute only twice a day, but a large number of vehicles like buses make multiple trips on congested roads,” he points out.

If you are seeing more bumper to bumper traffic in Bengaluru today there's a good reason. Every second person in the city has a vehicle as compared to every fourth in Delhi and every eighth person in Mumbai.

And alarmingly, the volume of vehicles in the city is only growing. The 44.The term 'miningtruck control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag.53 lakh vehicles that Bengaluru has today will increase to 47.5 lakh by the end of December 2013 and 50 lakh by mid- 2014, says the transport department which reveals the city's vehicle volume is growing at the rate of 9.8 per cent.

With its narrow roads and lack of a viable mass transport system, Bengaluru is clearly looking at a horrifying traffic scenario in the not so distant future unless it finds a viable solution without much delay. Traffic expert, Prof. M N Sreehari, warns that even the Metro Rail can handle only to 18 per cent of the city's traffic.

"We must have a mass transport system which can handle a larger volume of commuters. We need to think of options other than the Metro," he stresses, deploring the unbalanced approach of the authorities to developing infrastructure for the city.

“Why is the government planning infrastructure projects only along the IT corridors when we need to decongest its central urban areas? IT professionals commute only twice a day, but a large number of vehicles like buses make multiple trips on congested roads,” he points out.

Additional commissioner of police M A Saleem, feels short term traffic management like improving junctions, more one-ways and disallowing parking on roads can be of help till the mass transport system of Bengaluru improves.

Plans are in place to begin improvements on the Beach's main road in 2014. The six-mile work will involve mile increments and roughly $40 to complete it. The first mile of work has been budgeted with the location to be determined after study efforts.

"Preliminary design study efforts are well under way. We have money budgeted already to move into the design segment for the first mile," said County Department of Transportation's David Loveland.

The next segment of work has not been budgeted thus far, and that stresses confusion over what will happen after the first mile of construction is completed. Commissioner Larry Kiker brought up that point.

"At this point, we don't have any funding for any additional segments in the five-year window of the CIP (capital improvement plans)," said Loveland. "The first segment has been funded at $7 million. As we go through, we will have a better handle of the costs to come out of the design effort. Once we have the preliminary design study done and we have the cost, we can use that as a basis to explore some grant opportunities."

Town officials hope more money or grant dollars come in so that a utility replacement project involving a Beach water system and County sewer lines can be done at the same time without interruption. Storm water work should also be coupled in as well. With utility poles practically up against the road lines at various points on the boulevard, some questioned if electrical utilities could be placed underground so that sidewalks could be constructed where poles currently lie.

"You would have to have substation boxes that come out of the ground every couple hundred feet and room for those, so that is something that has to be resolved and paid for," said Loveland. "We do have a big problem where parts of the north end only have 50 feet of right-of-way. Trying to fit sidewalks and potentially bike lanes and utilities will be quite a shoehorn job."

Kosinksi asked if pre-burying conduits under the road's surface and applying for Federal funds would be an option. He was told officials would look into that proces.Search for daily injectionmolding coupons and monthly specials.

Plans are in place to begin improvements on the Beach's main road in 2014. The six-mile work will involve mile increments and roughly $40 to complete it. The first mile of work has been budgeted with the location to be determined after study efforts.

"Preliminary design study efforts are well under way. We have money budgeted already to move into the design segment for the first mile," said County Department of Transportation's David Loveland.Posts with howotractor system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors.

The next segment of work has not been budgeted thus far, and that stresses confusion over what will happen after the first mile of construction is completed. Commissioner Larry Kiker brought up that point.

"At this point,New Ground-Based solarlamp Tech Is Accurate Down To Just A Few Inches. we don't have any funding for any additional segments in the five-year window of the CIP (capital improvement plans)," said Loveland. "The first segment has been funded at $7 million. As we go through, we will have a better handle of the costs to come out of the design effort. Once we have the preliminary design study done and we have the cost, we can use that as a basis to explore some grant opportunities."

Town officials hope more money or grant dollars come in so that a utility replacement project involving a Beach water system and County sewer lines can be done at the same time without interruption. Storm water work should also be coupled in as well. With utility poles practically up against the road lines at various points on the boulevard, some questioned if electrical utilities could be placed underground so that sidewalks could be constructed where poles currently lie.

"You would have to have substation boxes that come out of the ground every couple hundred feet and room for those, so that is something that has to be resolved and paid for," said Loveland. "We do have a big problem where parts of the north end only have 50 feet of right-of-way. Trying to fit sidewalks and potentially bike lanes and utilities will be quite a shoehorn job."

Banks find NFC a buyer's market

Now MasterCard has become the latest corporation to hedge its bets on NFC, with the card scheme supplementing its PayPass NFC solution with a virtual wallet that will allow consumers to pay for things in store without the need for an NFC chip on their phone.

Card companies like MasterCard and Visa have been arguing for a long time that their main competitor is cash. If they can encourage more people to use branded debit and credit cards for small payments, they stand to gain significantly.Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an buymosaic.

But as author Brett King explains, we could see the death of plastic cards before we see the death of cash.

Cash is anonymous, and anonymity is something PayPal, MasterCard and Visa all have reason to fear.

MasterCard’s foray into wallet services includes a bunch of “value-added services”, which it says include real-time alerts, loyalty programs, offers and experiences. All of these rely heavily on customer data,All siliconebracelet comes with 5 Years Local Agent Warranty ! and mobile payments have the added benefit of location-based information.

PayPal’s Here service, which allows consumers to pay for things by checking in at a particular store, is all about helping retailers develop a greater understanding of the purchase history of their customers.

MasterCard’s MasterPass service puts the card giant in direct competition with PayPal, since it won’t rely on customers exclusively using MasterCard branded products.

In Australia, mobile payments deployments from banks have focused heavily on iPhone — ANZ with GoMoney, and Commonwealth Bank with Kaching, which both later extended to Android devices. Neither has managed to make these work with NFC, at least not on a large scale.We offers custom ultrasonicsensor parts in as fast as 1 day.

ANZ, which is currently undertaking an NFC payments pilot with staff, is conspicuously absent from the list of banks MasterCard has said will trial the MasterPass service.

The road to payments nirvana is littered with dozens of failed co-branded NFC payment trials that relied too heavily on consumers choosing one type of phone and one payment brand.

Google learnt this the hard way with Verizon blocking Google Wallet from its NFC-enabled Android handsets in the US.

Samsung this week announced Visa’s NFC functionality would be built into all future Samsung smartphones, but it’s yet another case of two brands hoping they will have enough clout to move the market towards NFC.

The scanning of QR Codes by smartphones is the latest NFC-bridge banks are focusing their sights on, but this option could go the same way as NFC cases, stickers and dongles, none of which have gained traction.

Meanwhile, those that are keen to bypass banks and card schemes and their pesky thirst for data have been busy building mobile apps for decentralised digital currency Bitcoin.

Bitcoin may not deliver as much anonymity as cash, but in a world where banks, card schemes, social networks and retailers are increasingly finding ways to connect data on consumers, it’s likely to keep chipping away at traditional banking.

Through extensive interviews with past and present industry insiders,New Ground-Based solarlamp Tech Is Accurate Down To Just A Few Inches. scouring scores of documents, and years of investigation, Moss unveils any number of tricks and strategies intended to do one thing only: sell more products. If it means endangering the health of the nation by boosting salt, fat and sugar levels, so be it. As it stands, a third of Americans are obese. The number one reason, according to Moss, is potato chips.

Among his many findings, he writes about what scientists call “bliss spots,” the point when the sugar and salt levels are just exactly right; the point where you continue to want more, but don’t get bored or overwhelmed by the flavor. The point where you don’t want to stop eating. These levels are determined by labs designed to find them, and “crave consultants” in white coats do the dirty work.

The amount of research done on perfecting the desirability of junk food is staggering. Frito-Lay had a research complex near Dallas, where nearly 500 chemists, psychologists and technicians conducted research costing up to $30 million a year. Sadly they weren’t finding a cure for cancer, but analyzing issues of crunch, mouth feel and aroma of snack items. According to an excerpt from Moss’ book published in The Times, their tools included a $40,Universal solarstreetlight are useful for any project.000 device that simulates a chewing mouth to test and perfect the chips, discovering things like the perfect break point. (Most people like a chip that snaps with about four pounds of pressure per square inch. Who knew?)

One of the most perfect snacks ever invented, according to food scientist Steven Witherly, is Cheetos. “This,” Witherly told Moss, “is one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure.” He described a dozen attributes of the Cheetos that make the brain say “more.” But the one he focused on most was the puff’s uncanny ability to melt in the mouth. “It’s called vanishing caloric density,” Witherly said. “If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it ... you can just keep eating it forever.”

Architect defined Omaha's image with enduring landmarks

Even those who work in and frequent the century-old Scottish Rite Masonic Center in downtown Omaha admit that its business is a mystery to most.

The word “Cathedral” is etched into the four-story limestone building at 20th and Douglas Streets, but it's not a religious institution. Membership is exclusively male, yet its theater and ballroom opened for public use a decade ago.

Visitors are treated to state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems, while men meeting in the lodge room wear color-coded pillbox hats that harken to British regiment caps of the 19th century.

Restore Omaha conference organizers plan to pull back the drapes on the Neo Classical Revival structure during a two-day event aimed at encouraging the public to preserve older properties. A tour and reception at the Scottish Rite on Friday will showcase recent restorations as well as honor the architect behind it and two other historic landmarks within a stone's throw — the Douglas County Courthouse and Central High School.

Micah Evans, development director of the Scottish Rite Foundation, said Latenser's enduring classical works — which also include the J.L. Brandeis Building and Omaha Athletic Club — reflect a pivotal time in Omaha's history when it was flourishing and moving beyond brick and wood buildings.

“Latenser is considered 'Omaha's architect,'” Evans said. “His buildings define the city's image for the first few decades of the 20th century.”

Born in Liechtenstein into a family of master architects, Latenser received technical training in Stuttgart, Germany, before emigrating to the United States. He came to Omaha in 1887 after a period in Chicago and is credited with having designed numerous Omaha area public schools, including Central,We can supply cableties products as below. South and North High Schools.Trade Warehouse have partnered with one of the worlds largest solarlight producers.

Latenser's career locally took off in the late 1880s with the now-destroyed Webster Street schoolhouse, Evans said.

The “untested” new architect in town was said to have pointed out flaws in competitors' plans and made a passionate bid for his own, Evans said.Creative glass tile and lanyard for your distinctive kitchen and bath. School board officials asked Latenser to stay beyond the time allotted, and he ultimately beat out 18 established competitors.

Another turning point came in the early 1890s when Latenser came up with a way to correct the faulty foundation of the Federal Post Office in Chicago, said Omaha architect Larry Jacobsen, who prepared the historic landmark application for the Scottish Rite. As a result, President Grover Cleveland appointed Latenser superintendent of construction for the new post office building at 16th and Dodge Streets in Omaha.

Sons John Jr. and Frank later joined their dad in a practice. And in the 1930s, Jacobsen said, 89 of 98 blocks in downtown Omaha contained at least one building designed by John Latenser & Sons.

Today,Universal solarstreetlight are useful for any project. more than a dozen buildings designed by the senior Latenser are on the National Register of Historic Places.

Jacobsen, vice president of Omaha's Schemmer architectural, engineering and planning firm, said he doesn't know of anyone who had designed as many commercial buildings in Omaha as Latenser.

The grandson will be a guest at Friday's tour of the Scottish Rite, where recent restoration projects will be highlighted, including changes two year ago to the 400-seat proscenium theater.You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth solarlantern Descriptions.

Unique elements remain, such as the original organ and hand-painted stage canvases. Lighting and sound systems have been updated and wood floors installed. Balcony seats are original to the 1914 opening, while lower seats are newer and wider yet fit with the decor.

“It's that balance of using the materials and forms of the past, but adapting to a practical approach today,” said Jacobsen.

During other restoration phases, the main entrance of the Scottish Rite was changed from Douglas Street to 20th Street; new flooring was made to match the original terrazzo bordered with mosaic tile and marble; and a men's “smoking room” became a women's bathroom.

Classical “egg and dart” molding has been preserved, as have carved woodwork, marble, leaded glass doorways, many chandeliers and the original brass collapsing elevator gate.

On the exterior, two Ionic limestone columns rise three stories and frame the portico that defines the former front entrance on Douglas Street.

Originally, the structure, with a cornerstone laid in October 1912, was called the Scottish Rite Cathedral, but the name was changed to avoid misconceptions, Evans said. Members believe in a higher power, but they represent various denominations. Evans said the cathedral title was more of a reference to the structure's grandeur.

2013年2月24日 星期日

Intrigues, fears, as the world awaits new Pope

INTRIGUES,The term 'glassmosaic control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. scandals, rumours and fears capable of impugning the credibility of the eventual new Pope are rife, as Cardinal electors from every region of the world begin to gather to pick the man to succeed Pope Benedict XVI, who will step down on Thursday.

The church has suddenly found itself in uncharted waters owing to the fact that no Pope had resigned in over 600 years.For the world leader in solarlight base services and plastic injection products. But far from the feeling of sobriety and wholesomeness expected to associate the making of the new occupant of the exalted Papacy, intrigues, scandals and rumours have become the confetti on the lane being walked by the 117 Cardinals, who constitute the conclave that has the theocratic right to elect a new Pope.

The cable news are awash with ever emerging fears rife enough to influence the vote and with it the direction of the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal electors must be younger than 80 years old to participate in the conclave. The average age is 72.

After the February 11 retirement announcement, various reports on inside happenings at the Vatican appeared to underscore the backbiting at the Vatican, which the retreating Pope was unable to control. Some of the stories making the rounds in the Italian media and streamed by New York Times stretched the high stake intrigue theory beyond bounds, alleging gay sex scandals in the Vatican.

Others focused on particular Cardinals stung by the child sexual abuse crisis, which suggest internal struggles as prelates scramble to consolidate power and attack their rivals in the dying days of a troubled Papacy. The reports, which the Vatican has vehemently refuted, touch on some of the most vexing issues of Benedict’s nearly eight-year reign, including a new round of accusations of child sexual abuse by priests, and international criticism of the Vatican Bank’s opaque record-keeping.

The recent explosion of bad press, which some Vatican experts say is fed by carefully orchestrated leaks meant to weaken some Papal contenders, also speak to Benedict’s own difficulties in governance, which analysts say he is trying to address, albeit belatedly, with several high-profile personnel changes.

In a strongly-worded rebuke and rebuttal, the Vatican Secretariat of State issued a rare statement at the weekend calling it “deplorable” that ahead of the conclave, there was “a widespread distribution of often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories that cause serious damage to persons and institutions.”

It went further to compare the news reports to past attempts by foreign states to exert pressure on Papal elections, saying that any effort to skew the choice of the next Pope by trying to shape public opinion were “based on judgments that do not typically capture the spiritual aspect of the moment that the church is living.”

Benedict had addressed at least one past scandal with the February 15 appointment of a new head of the Vatican Bank. It is less clear why he re-assigned a powerful Vatican diplomatic official to a posting outside Rome, though experts say it diminished the official’s role in helping to steer Vatican policy.

At the conclusion of the Vatican’s Lenten spiritual retreat, a Papal contender, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, spoke darkly of the “divisions, dissent, careerism, jealousies” that he said plagued the Vatican hierarchy. The recent spate of news reports were linked to an earlier scandal in which the Pope’s butler stole confidential documents, an episode considered one of the gravest security breaches in the modern history of the church.

For instance, the past week’s articles in the centre-left daily newspaper, La Repubblica, and the centre-right Weekly Panorama, which largely did not reveal their sources, reported that three Cardinals, whom Benedict had asked to investigate the documents scandal, had found evidence of Vatican officials who had been put in compromising positions.

The publications reported that after interviewing dozens of people inside and outside the Vatican, the Cardinals produced a hefty dossier. La Repubblica wrote in this regard: “The report is explicit. Some high prelates are subject to ‘external influence’ - we would call it blackmail - by non-church men to whom they are bound by ‘worldly’ ties.”

Separately, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said last week that the reports were only trying to “discredit the church and its government” ahead of the conclave.

However, indications have since emerged that the world could settle for a black Pontiff. If not as the immediate successor of Benedict, then at some no distant future.We maintain a full inventory of all lanyard we manufacture.

There are an estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, according to Vatican figures. More than 40 per cent of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America - but Africa has seen the biggest growth in Catholic congregations in recent years.

For instance, the American Cable News Network (CNN) recently reported that when Nigeria’s Cardinal John Onaiyekan was asked penultimate week at the celebration of Black History Month in Toronto, Canada, if he thought that the time was ripe for an African Pope, his response attracted much cheering from the crowd of over 500 Catholics of African descent.

He reportedly said: “The time for an African Pope was ripe even in the time of the Apostolic Fathers in the first century of the church. I am not saying that I wish to be considered for the Papacy, but the fact that the Gospel is to be preached to all peoples, languages, and races means that the highest leadership of the church should be open to anyone from any race, language and nation. I will not be surprised to see an African Pope in my life-time.We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard plasticcard and controllers.”

According to the news report, “within the last three decades, there has been a shift in global Catholicism. The center of gravity in World Christianity has moved from the West to the global South”

The stage is therefore apparently set for the prospect of an African pope to be put to the test in the next conclave in March as a result of the sudden resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. Nigeria has over the years had some of its bishops canonised and made cardinals. These include Cyprien Tansi (Michael Iwene Tansi) (1903-1964) and DOMINIC Cardinal Ignatius Ekadem (1917-1995). Another Nigerian Francis Cardinal Arinze is the current Cardinal Bishop of Velletri-Segni (succeeding Joseph Ratzinger who became Pope Benedict XVI) since 2005. He was even considered papabile before the 2005 papal conclave, which elected Benedict XVI.

And interestingly only Nigeria, has two (Olubunmi Anthony Okogie and John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan) out of the eleven Cardinals from Africa who are part of the conclave where the new Pope would be chosen. The others are Polycarp Pengo (Tanzania), Gabriel Zubeir Wako (Sudan), Wilfrid Fox Napier (South Africa), Theodore Adrien Sarr (Senegal),Features useful information about handsfreeaccess tiles. John Njue (Kenya), Robert Serah (Guinea), Peter Kodwo Apiah Turkson (Ghana), Antonios Naguib (Egypt) and Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya (Democratic Republic of Congo).

For many Catholics, where a pope comes from may not be as important as who the pope is, but for most African Catholics the election of an African pope will be a wonderful sign that African Catholicism has come of age, and they hope that such a pope will address squarely the particular challenges facing Africans today and integrate African culture and socio-economic priorities into mainstream Catholicism.

Age of Context Draft Introduction

In the 2005 movie Batman Begins, the caped guy appears out of nowhere as Commissioner Gordon is taking out his trash. He delivers a cryptic message: “Storm’s coming.You can siliconebracelet Moon yarns and fibers right here as instock.” Then, just as suddenly as he appeared, he is gone.

For the next two hours of the movie all hell breaks loose. Finally,Looking for the Best iphoneheadset? peace is restored. After so much tumult and trouble, people can resume their normal lives. And they discover that life after the storm is better than it had been before.

We are no caped crusaders, but we are here to warn you there is a storm coming. It has already started. There will be tumult but, when the disruption subsides, life will be better.

This imminent storm is no natural creation. Instead, it is being created by thousands of people, some of them the world’s smartest technologists and business strategists. Some work for tiny startups; others represent the likes of GE, Walmart, Heineken, the NFL, Apple Computer,This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a parkingsystem tile and floral motif. Nike, Oakley, Google and Qualcomm, to name just a few. They are investing billions of dollars in technology that will change the world, including your particular part of it. They are forward-thinking decision makers in banks, the military, government, health, robotics, space exploration, marine biology and many other categories.

These companies are among thousands of organizations worldwide who are changing the lives of people as varied in their needs as: skiers who wear goggles that give them realtime information as they careen downhill; paraplegics who use robotic arms powered by their own brainwaves; stadium fans who order food and beverages via a mobile app and get delivery in express lines; and technologists who reduce energy costs by billions of dollars a year by chatting in a social network with jet engines in flight.

This is a storm of change and it is extremely powerful. It’s already upon us and is growing ever more powerful as you sit reading these words. It is going to change your work, your life and the lives of the people you love or just casually meet online or in the real world.

Perfect storms change the face of the land when they hit. At first there’s havoc and debris. Then there is rebuilding. The landscape heals, and very often the places hit hardest end up better off than they were before the storm hit.

Our storm is comprised not of three forces, but five. They are not natural. They are technological, and they’re already causing havoc and making waves. As separate entities each is already a part of your life today: mobile devices; social media; big data; sensors; and location-based services.Looking for the Best iphoneheadset? Together, they have created the conditions for an unstoppable perfect storm of epic proportion.

Each of our five forces is growing exponentially in mass and velocity. But that story has been told. What is new and different is that these five forces are converging into one great superforce, one whose impact will be far greater than the sum of its parts.

This superforce will change work and life for most people in the developed world so fundamentally and universally, that we believe it will usher in a new age.

Robert Scoble and Shel Israel are two veteran Silicon Valley journalists,For the world leader in solarlight base services and plastic injection products. covering two interdependent communities. Picture them sitting on a fence looking out in opposite directions.

Scoble looks out at the tech sector, where he spends much of his time talking with innovators who build little chunks of tomorrow for the rest of us. Collectively, they give Scoble a good look at what technologists are building for tomorrow.

These days, he is hearing considerable use of the buzzword context. Investment dollars are pouring in. Big companies are recruiting contextual technologists by the truckload. New products are coming to market at an accelerating rate. There is great excitement.

Israel looks out upon the other side of our virtual fence. He writes and consults for the business community and in business publications such as Forbes. He talks a lot to business people who are interested in how technology can help them make customers happy and their companies more profitable.

He is not seeing much excitement. Most business people are still trying to push rocks up the hill into business recovery. They know little or nothing about contextual technology. They don’t think about how contextual tools and wearable computers will make them more efficient and acquire them more customers and sales. No manager we know has pondered what they should invest in context to make their quarterly fiscal goals.

But they will and it will happen sooner than many people realize. In fact it is imminent.

When the tech community is this unified in focus, and excited about what they are building and introducing, it follows as surely as the day follows the night that technologists make waves that invariably land on the shores of business.

They invent the stuff that the rest of us use.

Sitting on the fence, Scoble and Israel are currently in the eye of a superstorm. The business community may sense nothing, but the winds of fundamental change are blowing at them. Bracing for it is wiser than trying to evacuate.

Like the good folk of Batman’s Gotham City, the best option for you is to brace yourselves for this storm of change and prepare to ride it out. It will be followed by good times in a new age—the Age of Context.

One in three 'not saving any money'

The tough economy and the need to help other family members struggling with high living costs means that many people are living on a "financial precipice", with little or nothing to fall back on, Scottish Widows said.

Some 31% of people said that they are not currently placing any cash aside, although this is a marginal improvement compared with a year ago when 32% of consumers said this. However, only one in nine (11%) of those surveyed expects the economy to pick up this year and 17% have no money to fall back on at all, the Savings and Investment report said.

Of the two-thirds of people who are managing to add to their nest eggs, 32% have a total pot of less than £1,000 - which would not even be enough to pay someone's average mortgage and council tax costs for a month - the report said.

One quarter of people surveyed who have families said they had handed out loans to their children, which were often just to help them cope with high living costs as wages stagnate.Buy Wickes Porcelain parkingmanagementsystem today.

Parents said that they had given out loans averaging £15,000 to help their children take major steps such as getting on the property ladder or going to university, showing an 11% year-on-year increase in terms of the average loan size. Some 24% of parents said this support had forced them to cut back on their own savings and one in 12 had stopped saving altogether.

Older generations are also feeling the strain, with grandparents saying they have lent £3,665 on average to their grandchildren.

Two-thirds of people across the survey said that a general lack of any spare cash is holding back their ability to save.

As well as rising living costs such as food, energy bills,Source customkeychain Products at Dump Truck. rents and petrol making life harder for savers, rates on savings accounts have been plummeting in recent months, meaning they face an even tougher struggle to make any real returns. A Government scheme launched in August has given lenders access to cheap finance to help borrowers. But analysts have said this scheme has made lenders less reliant on the need to attract savers' deposits, meaning that savings rates have plummeted.

The choice of tax-free Isas on the market has shrunk by a fifth compared with February 2012, recent research by financial information website Moneyfacts has found. The Isa deals on offer this year are also less likely to allow people to transfer savings in from older Isas than those on the market in spring 2012, the website said. High street banks have also reported a trend towards people using any extra money to pay down their debts as consumers continue to act cautiously in the difficult economy.

The Syrian military, which razed the site after the Israeli raid, said the complex was a regular military facility but refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency unrestrained access, after the agency said the complex could have been a nuclear site. The UN investigation appears to have died down since the national revolt against Preident Bashar Al Assad broke out in 2011, with the armed opposition increasingly capturing military sites in rural areas and on the edges of cities. UN inspectors examined the site in June 2008 but Syrian authorities has barred them access since.

Footage showed fighters inspecting the site and one large missile inside a hangar. One fighter pointed to what he said were explosives placed under the missile to destroy it before attacking forces got to it.

Abu Hamza, a commander in the Jafaar Al Tayyar brigade, said in a YouTube video taken at Kubar that various rebel groups, including the Al Qaeda linked Al-Nusra front, took part the operation and that UN inspectors were welcome to come and survey the site.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that China and Russia were increasingly realising that President Bashar Al Assad’s time was up.Search for daily injectionmolding coupons and monthly specials. Merkel,Panasonic solarlantern fans are energy efficient and whisper quiet. beginning a two-day trip to Turkey, said the missiles, provided at Nato member Turkey’s request, were a signal that the alliance would not tolerate Damascus dragging its neighbours into its conflict.

“In view of the terrible events the impression is mounting that China and Russia realise that Assad no longer has a future, that his time is up and that there must be a democratic government,” she told troops deployed to operate the missile batteries.

China and Russia, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, have blocked attempts by the West to mount pressure on Assad to end the violence in the nearly two-year-old conflict that has killed some 70,000 people.We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard plasticcard and controllers.

2013年2月20日 星期三

Cumberland Farms pressed on store humidity

Representatives from Cumberland Farms recently came before the Marion Planning Board hoping to rectify increased humidity inside the store with a plan to move some of its heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system from the roof to the ground, but got an earful about the on-going parking and traffic issues that continue to plague the new site.

Cumberland Farms Senior Project Manager Manny Paiva told members of Marion Planning Board at the Feb. 4 meeting that the new store and other stores like it had begun to have a build-up of condensation inside the building along its front windows, as well as at the cooler and freezer windows, leaving pools of water on the floor. Paiva said the company hired AccuTemp, a mechanical consultant, to investigate the issue. AccuTemp recommended that a HVAC and condenser units be installed on the ground to compliment the ones built on the roof. Paiva asked the Planning Board’s permission to construct a six-foot concrete pad on the side of the building for the units, to be surrounded by arborvitaes trees. Paiva said while the roof top units have worked in the past, the stores have considerably increased its cooler and freezer offerings, which causes the increased condensation. He said his construction crew is ready to go with the work, but wanted to come in front of the Planning Board first before seeking a permit from the town Building Inspector.

Utilizing the opportunity with Cumberland Farms officials in front of the full board for the first time in more than six months, Marion Planning Board member Tom Magauran took a side route to the discussion, and began asking questions about the traffic flow issues that continue to plague the site. Magauran said it was clear that the new site was “extremely successful” but he didn’t appreciate how the company “blew us off” after the planning board sent an Oct. 1 letter requesting help in alleviating some of the new stores issues that not only included traffic flow but parking, as well.

Cumberland Farms attorney Doug Troyer disagreed with Magauran’s assessment, stating that company officials met with Marion Planning Board Chairman Jay Ryder and Planning Board Vice Chairman Patricia McArdle in November in regards to the letter and had wanted to meet a number of other times until they discovered that Ryder had become ill.

Ryder discussed the group’s meeting in November and the consensus decision to add six additional spaces to the site,We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard plasticcard and controllers. but that nothing could be done to paint the new spots until the weather breaks.

Luludja holds up her modest rose bouquet in a French brasserie, moving along from table to table. She’s thinking of her family, the people she’s doing it all for. Most of the money,Features useful information about handsfreeaccess tiles. however, will be banked by a man in her home country, hundreds of kilometres away. She forces a shy smile. Her lips are painted bright red.

Tonight most guests decline. They do not look her in the face and fail to notice the glistening green eye shadow she is wearing. After two hours and stops at various cafes and restaurants, Luludja finally manages to sell a rose for €3 to a young man in horn-rimmed glasses. She also sells her body, for €35.

Luludja works the streets in Frejus, a town on the Mediterranean coast in France. The holiday resort is not too far from Saint-Tropez, where the rich go to have their holidays amidst their yachts. The summer sees hundreds of thousands of tourists flocking into the seaside resort.We maintain a full inventory of all lanyard we manufacture. That is when dozens of Bulgarian Roma prostitute themselves on the streets.

Luludja came to western Europe from Central Bulgaria four years ago. She had seen images of the C?te-d’Azur on TV and pictured herself there leading a better life. She says the flowers bring in about €5 to €8 per night, not enough to pay off the debt she made by coming here. “In the end, the bouquets are just bait for potential clients wanting more than flowers.”

She says she did not see anything wrong in selling her body. But she does not want to give her full name.

“The work I do allows me and my family to survive,” she says. That is the most important thing at this point.For the world leader in solarlight base services and plastic injection products. The morning after her flower tour along the bars in the old town, she is in a muddy meadow in Frejus where she and her husband Daniel live in a trailer between piles of junk and rotting garbage.The term 'glassmosaic control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag.

Her mouth contracts and her face tightens when she is asked how exactly she got to France. After a while her husband Daniel – his hair neatly gelled back, polished leather shoes on his feet – starts talking, hesitantly. He says a man in their slum near Plowdiw offered to drive them.

A dangerous shooter in the mold of other Friars' scorers

Cotton has taken 127 shots from 2-point range this season. He’s attempted 186 shots from beyond the 3-point arc. He is, by all accounts, a dangerous perimeter sniper.

“He wasn’t a shot-maker when we got him,” Providence coach Ed Cooley said, “but he’s become a very good 3-point shooter.”

Cotton, a 6-foot-1, 165-pound junior from Tucson, Ariz., attempted just 54 3-pointers his freshman year and made 14 of them. Cooley said he wanted Cotton to become more aggressive with his 3-point shot. He wanted more production from his young guard.

Cooley characterizes Cotton as something of “a loner,” a guy who finds comfort in the solitary practice of shooting in an empty gym. He has improved his shooting and his scoring, Cooley said, because “he’s worked at it.”

“He has an incredible work ethic. He’s a gym rat,” Cooley said. “I don’t think you can shoot the ball that way if you’re not a gym rat.”

But Cooley said Cotton is more athletic than his slight frame suggests. He cites Cotton’s ability to soar in space and slam an alley-oop pass as evidence of that athleticism.For the world leader in solarlight base services and plastic injection products. His game, Cooley said, consists of more than just a single shooting dimension.

Ken Pomeroy ranks Cotton 30th nationally in offensive rating, which measures a player’s offensive efficiency.This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a parkingsystem tile and floral motif. That stat essentially measures points produced per 100 possessions. Cotton’s offensive rating is 125.2.

“He’s been an incredible player for them,” said former Providence coach turned TV analyst Tim Welsh. “In terms of his development, he’s done all the right things. I did not think that he’d get to this point and I don’t know if they did, either.”

The likelihood that Cotton will win the Big East scoring title this season highlights an interesting trend with the Friars. In the past 10 seasons, including the 2012-13 campaign, Providence has or will produce four players who finished the season as the league’s top scorer.

Cooley joked that “it must be something in the water,” that allows Friars players to produce all those points. Welsh said Providence’s previous style of play — the Friars were a team that leaned heavily on transition baskets — contributed to the high scoring numbers.

None of those players – not MarShon Brooks,You can siliconebracelet Moon yarns and fibers right here as instock. not Herbert Hill, not Ryan Gomes – have been named the Big East’s Player of the Year. And that honor will likely elude Cotton as well.

Big East coaches debate each season about the merits of several players under consideration for the player of the year. A couple years ago, a couple coaches mentioned Brooks as a candidate, but the high-scoring Friar and future Brooklyn Nets draft pick lost the title that year to Notre Dame’s Ben Hansborough.

Welsh coached the Friars when Gomes accumulated his scoring totals. He – and Cooley – understand the nature of the player-of-the-year award.

“When Ryan Gomes was a junior, he made nine first-team All-America teams and the next year, he made none, even though his stats were better,” Welsh said. “That year, we didn’t go to the NCAA Tournament.Looking for the Best iphoneheadset? The year he made those All-America teams, we were a five seed in the NCAA Tournament. It’s all about winning.”

The original idea behind Android was an open mobile operating system that hardware makers could use for free and mold to their needs – and that’s exactly what they’ve done. Android smartphones and tablets often have some kind of shell atop the stock interface, along with a series of custom applications, that give the device its own personality.

In addition, manufacturers may tweak the very core of Android itself. Menus may have a different look and feel, for example, in an attempt to improve upon the user experience. In fact, about the only devices that don’t have some kind of changes are Google’s own Nexus products. Techies love them, but the masses are snapping up the big-brand Android phones, and are seeing less and less of Android as a result.

As Wildstrom points out in his piece, Android takes a back seat to the Galaxy S brand from Samsung as well. And Amazon.com’s Kindle Fire line of tablets run a reworked version of Android,Looking for the Best iphoneheadset? something that’s not prominent in the online retailer’s marketing.

To a certain extent, this mirrors what happened in the earliest days of the PC, when hardware vendors like Compaq and Packard Bell tried to make up for the deficiencies of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 with shells. Eventually, Windows matured to the point that its interface didn’t require a facelift, and there was more to gain from experience consistency than differentiation. But the reworked PCs always emphasized in their marketing that these were Windows devices, a fact that had to do with licensing. Windows was not free and had more restrictions and requirements than Android does.

Orem radar company demos product for defense department

Harris, the owner of Orem-based SpotterRF, developed a portable radar device that has received the attention of the U.S. Department of Defense. He was invited to demonstrate the Spotter M600C at the Stiletto Maritime Demonstration Program last month for the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.

"The Department of Defense on a regular basis does investigations into new technology," Harris said. "They invite groups that might be applicable and test in real world situations."

The point of the radar is essentially to allow people to see around corners and into areas where traditional radar cannot reach. That allows military users to both move and deploy with a greater knowledge of the type of situation they are entering. During the demonstration, the Spotter M600C was set up remotely on a tripod at the mouth of the harbor. Several vessels traveled into and around the harbor. The radar communicated movements to the military vessel about a mile away, giving sailors real-time detections on a map that displayed the location,Panasonic solarlantern fans are energy efficient and whisper quiet. distance and speed of the target.

"We were their remote eyes where they didn't have coverage," Harris said. "Ships have large radar dishes limited by line of sight areas without view. We were in a port area where the entrance wasn't visible."

The military ship was able to get the advance alerts needed and deploy to take care of the problem. According to Harris all a person would need is a small tripod and a radio along with the M600C radar.

"Warfighting needs are rapidly changing,Buy Wickes Porcelain parkingmanagementsystem today. and our interest is in looking at mature technologies and future capabilities that could be transitioned to fill an operational need sooner than later," Dale Shiflett, NECC's deputy assistant chief of staff for strategy and technology, said in a news release. "Using the Stiletto Maritime Demonstration Program allowed us to look at the realm of possibilities for new and improved technologies. What better way to do that, than to have both the warfighter and the system developers in the same environment using the systems and having discussions on how it could work better."

Brock Josephson, SpotterRF's team lead for the demonstration, said, "The M600C was very effective at detecting all vessels coming in and out of the harbor. The system even detected and tracked a drifting jet ski."

Weirdly, you switch into macro mode by turning a ring on the lens; it snaps into a new position. I ruined more than one great photo because the lens ring had accidentally wound up in macro mode.

Superwide shots are effortless, since the RX1 inherits the Sweep Panorama feature of Sony’s other models; as you swing the camera around you, pressing the shutter button, it snaps away, creating a 270-degree, automatically stitched, usually perfect panorama in real time.

Video is gorgeous, too: 1080p high definition with stereo sound. There’s a miniplug input for an external microphone, too.

Clearly, this camera is intended for professionals or nearly pros. It’s built like a tank, all metal, with markings etched and not just painted on. Its shutter is completely silent. Its hotshoe accommodates various expensive accessories, including optical or electronic viewfinders.

It offers every kind of manual control, and you can customize it to the hilt; its scene mode dial offers three positions for storing your own memorized settings. There’s an aperture adjustment ring right on the lens, and there’s a dedicated exposure knob on the top.

Unfortunately, there are also some aspects that will drive you crazy. Focusing can be slow — in low light, really slow; as a result, this isn’t a great camera for sports, pets or children. There’s no stabilization for still photos, either. And you can’t play back stills and videos consecutively. You have to dive into the menus to switch from one form of playback to the other. That’s common to other recent Sony cameras,Search for daily injectionmolding coupons and monthly specials. and it’s idiotic.Source customkeychain Products at Dump Truck.

As the state has sought to profit more from the game, the Legislature has lifted most of the original restrictions, allowing it to expand from restaurants and bowling alleys to bars and large stores, and authorizing play almost around the clock.

The remaining restrictions prohibit businesses that do not serve alcohol from offering Quick Draw unless they occupy more than 2,500 square feet, and require players to be 21 years old in venues serving alcohol. (In other states, the minimum age is 18.) Removing those rules would allow small stores to offer Quick Draw, and would be likely to generate more sales in New York City, where per capita revenues are low compared with the rest of the state.

While the ZIP codes with the highest earnings tend to be in New York City — the neighborhood of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, is tops in the state, doing almost twice the business of the second-place ZIP code, northwest Staten Island, according to lottery figures — that is because city neighborhoods are far denser than those upstate.

The proposal would also allow players as young as 18 to play Quick Draw in bars, even though they cannot legally drink there.

“The restrictions have proved cumbersome and unnecessary, and have substantially reduced the amount of earnings that would otherwise be generated by the game,” reads the governor’s memo.We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard plasticcard and controllers.

Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the Assembly’s Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Committee, warned in a statement that the age change could result in a generation of new addicts. About one million New Yorkers have already been identified as “problem gamblers,” he said, noting that Quick Draw has been called “video crack.”

Why The Sloan Conference Is The Super Bowl Of Sports Analytics

Every movement has roles that need to be played, and the sports analytics movement is no different. The prophet of this nerdy-niche-gone-mainstream-discipline is clearly Bill James. His most famous disciple that is widely credited with the first wide scale, successful use of Jamesian theories is Billy Beane. The analytics gospel may just be Moneyball, with its creative story telling combined with real life use of alternative statistical thinking that spawned a slew of other books on a whole range of uses for analytics within a variety of sports. Thus, the movement’s prophet, most famous disciple, and gospel have been accounted for, leaving only the role of the congregation of followers and its annual congregational meeting to be identified. Enter the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, although its organizers would eschew the religious analogy for one based in the sports world. They view the conference as something akin to the Super Bowl – the culmination of a year’s worth of analytics work in a variety of sports that come together once a year to expose a wide array of media members, academics, and league/team leaders to the best analytics research and discussion available.

This year’s Sloan Conference is expected to attract more than 2700 people to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, an increase of nearly 25% over the 2200 attendees at the 2012 conference. Such growth is par for the course for this conference that was started in 2007 with less than 200 attendees on the MIT campus. It certainly has not hurt the conference’s fortunes that it came along at the same time that the Moneyball concept entered the national sports conscious through both book and movie, but the organizers chalk their success up to something more than just dumb luck. One of the conference’s student co-leads, Jonathan Katz, explained during a recent interview why the conference has been able to grow so quickly.

What I think has really enabled the conference to grow is being at the forefront; being the first organization to be focused on and emphasize sports analytics. I think it piggy backed on the Moneyball phenomenon, but being able to attract highly influential figures in the sports industry into a central location that has a lot of interesting ideas and smart people associated with it has enabled it to grow. Areas that we’ve added on in the last couple of years like the research paper competition, adding more business panels that focus on analytics like FanAlytics, social media analytics, and sponsorship analytics.

To walk around the Sloan conference is to be at the Disney World of sports analytics, if Disney World were not only a fun place to be but also educational and heavy on networking.Source plasticmould Products at Other Truck Parts. The two-day conference has five stages going at all times with talks from a variety of industry insiders, outsiders, contrarians, and researchers. Venture out of any of the main halls during conference hours and one finds booths set up by analytics firms looking to hire new talent or sell their product, clusters of poster boards detailing research competition findings as if they were at an academic conference, and even an ESPN booth recording video and audio segments for later broadcast. The Sloan conference has made itself the prime destination for the best sports analytical minds, known or unknown, which has allowed it to grow by double-digit percentages in each of the last seven years.

The conference, a brainchild of the Houston Rocket’s Daryl Morey and the Kraft Group’s Jessica Gelman,Our extensive range of injectionmold is supplied to all sorts of industries across Australia and overseas. relies upon MIT Sloan MBA students for organization and execution. Students are responsible for securing the sponsorships, recruiting panelists, pushing the social media presence of the conference, and running the entire operation during the two days of the actual conference. This provides the conference with two advantages.

First, it means that while the conference has a very significant corporate element in both attendance and sponsorship, it holds a simultaneous focus on the student and academic elements. About one third of the available tickets are dedicated to students, with the conference offering significant discounts on such tickets that are offset in part by the revenue gained via sponsorships. The conference provides a job posting board,Source lasercutter Products at Other Truck Parts. a research paper competition,Creative glass tile and solarlamp tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. and numerous other opportunities for students both young and old to interact with personalities to which they normally wouldn’t have access. If you’re an MBA student looking for a sports management career driven by analytics, an analyst in your spare time at a university, or a post-doc researcher in the field of sports analytics, there is no bigger stage with better and cheaper access to people in your field of study than the Sloan Conference.

Second, the focus on the student element means that MIT’s philosophies and culture permeate how the conference is run. Jonathan Katz explains further.

MIT’s motto is “Mens et Manus” which means “mind in hand”. It’s about thinking about things in new ways, but also making them a reality or making them come to fruition. I think our conference and mission really speaks to that. So, trying to come up with ideas, contrarian ways of thinking and convincing the world why that’s the better avenue to think… I think our mission statement of fostering growth and innovation in sports data and analytics only emphasizes or encourages what we promote in the MIT community.

This emphasis on the revolutionary-yet-practical means that the Sloan Conference is constantly evolving its content from year-to-year. From its first year forward the conference has always had a stable of panels focused upon on-field analytics – game time decision making, tactics, formations, and the like. Panels on baseball, football,Shop the web's best selection of precious gemstones and bobbleheads at wholesale prices. and soccer are now annual staples, and will continue to be so as there will always be a need for improved on-field analytics. However, the big changes in the conference’s content over the last few years have come in the off-field analytics topics. “FanAlytics”, “It’s Not You, It’s Me: Break-Ups in Sports”, “The Value of Sports Sponsorship”, “Ticketing Analytics” and other business-related panels focus on how to maximize revenue and value for businesses within the sports world. Supplementing these panels are the Evolution of Sport talks where speakers get to expose their possibly disruptive and definitely contrarian analytical theories to the wider conference audience. Think TED Talks for sports.

All of the focus on business-related analytics might be perceived by some as a shift in focus at the conference that discounts the importance of on-field analytics, but in reality it reflects how much the sports world has bought into the value of analytics both on- and off-the-field. The Bill James’ of the world have done such a good job demonstrating value on the field that the bean counters and executives have adopted the analytics mindset as well and are expanding it to business operations. That is a good thing, because the entire sports organization, from the lowliest assistant coach and marketing employee to the most senior leader needs to adopt the analytics philosophy if it is to be truly effective. Adoption by one half of the organization and not the other half can lead to worse organizational performance than if analytics had never been used in the first place. Rather than view sports business analytics as a competitor to traditional on-field analytics, analysts should view them as the surest sign that analytics are moving from niche to mainstream. This will make the job of on-field analysts much easier as it will lessen the cultural resistance to analytics within franchises, leagues, and sponsors, while simultaneously opening up another career path on-field analysts may choose to pursue.

Muscle Cars stamps to feature Newbury Park

The artwork will become part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Postal Museum in Washington, D.Product information for Avery Dennison smartcard products.C.Bathroom solarpanel at Great Prices from Topps Tiles.

“I’m honored, and it’s a little bit out of this world,” Fritz said as he sat in the basement studio of his Newbury Park home. “I was pleased with the outcome, and it’s something I’m proud of. I’m in pretty small company now, and to have the work in the museum — that’s incredible, too.Compare prices and buy all brands of ventilationsystem for home power systems and by the pallet.”

Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, for many years Fritz, 55, earned a living creating art and illustrations for defense firms and pursuing his passion for painting old automobiles on the side.

“Ever since I was a kid I’ve been involved with old machines, cars, bikes. If you look at my paintings, beyond the subject that is the car, there is a landscape or some sort of a composition that supports the subject,” he said.

In 2003, Fritz, who is married with two children, decided to focus full time on his passion for drawing and painting images reflecting the relationship between man and machine.

He found his first market in Michigan and the automotive industry, which commissioned work from him, and he was invited to join the Automotive Fine Arts Society. It grew from there, he said.

He exhibits his work at selected shows across the country and works on commission. His customers include Harley-Davidson Motor Co.We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard plasticcard and controllers., the corporate offices of the AAA, General Motors, the Ford Motor Co. and auto enthusiasts worldwide.

Through the automotive arts society, he met Art Fitzpatrick who, with Van Kaufman, created landmark ads for Pontiac in the 1950s and ’60s.

“The muscle cars are part of the ‘America On The Move’ stamp series, and Art Fitzpatrick did the first portion of that series that was called ‘ ’50s Fins and Chrome’ and another series of ‘ ’50s Sporty Cars,’ ” Fritz said.

“There’s an emotive quality to the muscle cars. They look like nothing else out there. People describe the look as menacing. They look angry, and when you start them up you can feel the engine pulsing, and it has a real visceral quality to it,” Fritz said.

“That quality has to come out in your painting, and I did it through my color choices, colors from the edge of the palette, more saturated and stronger, and in the composition, with a lot of angles, straight lines,Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an buymosaic. that indicate speed.”

Fritz created the art in early 2008 and says he has no idea why it’s taken five years for the stamps to be released. He was bound by a nondisclosure agreement and found out in September that the stamps would be issued this month.

Olympic and Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius is given tremendous dignity. The solitude of his situation is dramatically illuminated as he faces the most serious murder charge that can be brought in South Africa. It is hard to believe the picture was not set up for hours to get the composition right and the lighting suitably Rembrandtesque. It really does have the gravitas of an oil painting. And yet this is a real-life image seized by Siphiwe Sibeko during an emotional, contentious, crowded pretrial hearing.

Does this study in suffering sentimentalise Pistorius? It is far more subtle than that. The truth of what happened at his house in the early hours of Valentine's Day will not be decided by a court for many months, although defence and prosecution agree that he shot Reeva Steenkamp dead – either deliberately, or in a terrible mistaken attack on an imagined burglar. Whatever the truth, here we see him isolated by the awful event and unresolved mystery of the night Steenkamp died. The picture eerily captures his psychological isolation. The courtroom audience is physically and symbolically separated from him by a low wooden wall that might as well be a 100ft high barbed wire fence. It is the barrier between the accused and unaccused.

Some of the people look at him, some don't, and the eyes of those who study Pistorius seem mystified and uncertain rather than emotionally committed for or against. Meanwhile, his own eyes are shadowed and enigmatic. His pain is not just in his face but his entire body language – his sportsman's frame is taut and electrified, as if he were ready to sprint, but it is the ordeal of the bail hearing that fills him with angst and supercharged emotion.

Clearly, South Africa's courtrooms are designed by someone with a flair for the dramatic. What gives this photograph such intensity is the court lighting, which would not be out of place in a Caravaggio painting. The room is dark, with just enough light to reveal faces against tones of gloom. The wall behind the public gallery is black, except for a pool of light that reveals a rusty, or bloody, red-brick arc of wall. This curve of light heightens our concentration on the solitary figure of Pistorius, for he is caught by the camera right next to it. And so he stands in shadows, picked out by a reddish glow, his eyes dark pools of horror.

Why Do Big Data & Programmatic Marketing Actually Matter?

But, there is also the more invisible footprints you leave as you go about your day swiping your credit card, driving through tolls, visiting websites, etc.. So,We maintain a full inventory of all lanyard we manufacture. when we talk about Big Data, we really mean it.

Like many buzz terms, Big Data and Programmatic Marketing are actually nothing new, they are old ideas brought up to date to the modern need; and so, if you really want to succeed in digital marketing, you must understand their roots and the core promises they make.

Think of traditional catalogue companies that have massive quantities of CRM data relating to every household in the country, or a supermarket brand with a loyalty card program that knows everything about your shopping habits, or even a credit card company that knows everything about your life and habits through your spend data — all these companies have had ‘big data’ for a long time.

So, to be a little more precise, think of big data in today’s world as being lots of data, but lots of data that is dispersed across multiple systems, and can therefore be cumbersome to make actionable in a meaningful way.

If you are a catalogue company,Make your house a home with Border and carparkmanagementsystem Tiles. then dispersed data doesn’t represent too much of a problem; you can run a query against your various databases to extract the information you need, and if that takes 24 hours to process, no big deal. But, in the digital world where we are trying to make decisions in real-time,Looking for the Best iphoneheadset? this cumbersome nature represents a real problem.

Therefore, the promise of programmatic marketing is to bind dispersed data together and make it actionable in a real-time, digital world. The idea is that these multiple systems are brought together through one technology, and then, rules can be written to make decisions and actions based on all that data. Think of a simple Boolean logic query that would say something like.

Realize it or not, that is how programmatic marketing works. Now, work would have to be done on the backend to make the databases that contain that information accessible, but can you imagine the power placed into the hands of a marketer who could see 2.5 quintillion bytes of data about their audience!

As a keynote speaker we’ll be featuring Michael Jackson, former COO of Skype and now Partner at Mangrove Capital Partners who will be talking about his story at Skype and how he sees mobile trends developing in the future from a platform and investor perspective. Few people know mobile as well as Michael.

We’ll also be joined by TechCrunch writers Kim-Mai Cutler and Ingrid Lunden who will be grilling the founders of hot Israeli startup Sync.Me, Joe Braidwood, CEO of SwiftKey and Vassili Filipov, head of Mobile Product Distribution at Yandex.

As well as Michael Jackson, we’ll have Roberto Bonanzinga of Balderton Capital and Oriol Juncosa, a partner with one of Spain’s key VC investors, Nauta Capital. Alongside them will be representatives from Active Venture Partners, Nauta Capital, StartupBootCamp and Caixa Capital Risc.

Our pitching competition will feature 8 teams selected from the below shortlisted group. All the companies will go through a closed session where they meet a panel of investors and experts to determine who goes on stage to pitch, with a panel of judges deciding the winner.Source plasticmould Products at Other Truck Parts.

The OpenSignal app helps users get better signal on their mobile phone through a suite of tools including the ability to see the direction of better cell signal in real time and the location of nearby free Wi-Fi hotspots. The app also crowd-sources data on the performance and coverage of the network so we can build unbiased and accurate cellular coverage maps. Consumers can use this information when considering a new cell phone plan, to ensure they are on the network offering the best coverage in their area.

Be Park stems from the idea that parking spaces in cities are underused. At Be Park, we have developed an innovative solution based on the latest mobile and web technologies. Be Park technology handles the entire logistics management of the parking lot at the parking users’ end and providers’ end. The parking user can localise access general information (price, availability, pictures, etc), open the door/barrier of the parking and pay through its cell phone (call,High quality chinamosaic tiles. sms or SmartPhone App). The parking provider can join BePark parking network without any investment. BePark will then manage entries/exits, payments, sales and reporting in exchange of a revenue share.

2013年2月18日 星期一

Under Ogawa's Macabre, Metafictional Spell

It used to be a truism among critics of British poetry that Keats and most of his fellow Romantic poets worked in the shadow of John Milton. I'm not making a perfect analogy when I suggest that most contemporary Japanese writers seem to be working under the shadow of Haruki Murakami, but I hope it highlights the spirit of the situation.

You certainly get that feeling of being haunted by Murakami when you begin reading the "Eleven Dark Tales," as she calls them, in this story cycle by Yoko Ogawa. The situations seem made for Murakami's particular blend of the real and the fantastic. In the opening story, "Afternoon at the Bakery," a customer comes into a shop to buy strawberry shortcake for, as it turns out, a child who died years before. Or there's the story "Old Mrs. J," in which the narrator's landlady grows carrots in her garden in the shape of human hands.

But as you read along, you find Ogawa ascending into an orbit of her own — one that's at least as high as Murakami's — as in the story "Sewing for the Heart," which features a bag designer whose customer is a woman with her heart growing on the outside of her chest; or in the flatly told but utterly bizarre trio of linked stories "Welcome to the Museum of Torture," "The Man Who Sold Braces" and "The Last Hour of the Bengal Tiger."

By the time you meet that tiger pacing about the garden of the two old women who founded the Museum of Torture,We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard plasticcard and controllers. you may find that you're already in an alternate universe, something akin to Murakami's world with two moons in IQ84. But there's a telling difference: More and more incidents appear that have already occurred in other stories. The Torture Museum happens to be run by the brace salesman. The bakery shop of the first story turns out to be a location in a novel carried around by a mysterious woman with a dog in another story. A garden of kiwi fruit links a couple of tales, as does an overturned truck that spills tomatoes across a highway.

And that Bengal tiger? In one story it's alive and vital; in another it has died, and its pelt has become a coat that warms — before it chills — the narrator of the brace-salesman story.

When the woman whose heart is outside her body reveals it to the bag maker, whom she engages to cover it with one of his creations, he sees it above her breast "pulsing and contracting." He says it "seemed to cringe under my gaze. ... It could fit in the palm of my hand. A pale pink membrane of delicate muscle tissue surrounded it.High quality chinamosaic tiles." A doctor believes he can operate on the woman successfully and place her heart in her chest cavity, but we hear — in another of the stories — that she is murdered in her hospital bed.

These and other links lead you, the reader, to recognize a strange and eccentric truth about this collection. Ogawa makes each of the stories seem like odd, if convincing, standalone works of short fiction and at the same time like metafictional products created by the characters in several of the stories. Are you reading about a trip to the zoo in a novel by one of the characters, or a trip to the zoo in a story by Ogawa? By the time you begin to recognize this paradox as the guiding principle of the stories, you're in too far to stop.

So, really, it's not just Murakami but also the shadow of Borges that hovers over this mesmerizing book.Why does bobblehead grow in homes or buildings? And in that telltale heart, one may detect a slight bow to the American macabre of E.A. Poe. Ogawa stands on the shoulders of giants, as another saying goes. But this collection may linger in your mind — it does in mine — as a delicious, perplexing, absorbing and somehow singular experience.Our extensive range of injectionmold is supplied to all sorts of industries across Australia and overseas.

Look no farther than the NOVO 1 Inc.Looking for the Best iphoneheadset? contact center’s expanding operations inside the state-of-the-art, 37,000-square-foot facility at 1351 S. Waverly Road, just north and east of M-40. The Forth Worth, Texas-based company, which contracts with outside businesses to provide call support, continues to repatriate full-time jobs, including 348 of them at its Holland location so far, after seeing those jobs shipped off to foreign countries during the recession.

And there are plans to fill all 450 seats — and beyond — at the Holland facility as NOVO 1 reaches further agreements with new business partners to let more American workers handle customer-service calls at home.

It’s the success stories of places such as NOVO 1 that prompted a television crew from Japan to travel to Michigan last week in an effort to chronicle the influx of jobs back into the U.S. as the economic forecast continues to brighten.

“I see lots of new opportunities here,” said Nobuyuki Kubo, production director for the NHK Network, which is the Japanese equivalent to PBS in the U.S. “We wanted to come here to begin to understand and to show how the state of Michigan is bringing jobs back and how successful it has been. Maybe we can learn something from here.”

In Japan, there is an aging population — people are living longer, getting better health care and remaining in their jobs longer than previous generations. As a result, salaries and health-care expenses of employees who are staying in the workforce longer has pushed costs so high that Japanese companies have had to send all sorts of jobs offshore to China, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines to remain competitive.

It has hampered the ability of younger people to enter the Japanese workforce, leaving a generational gap as companies struggle to find skilled and properly trained workers at home to replenish their ranks when older employees retire.

“We have similar problems in Japan,” Kubo said. “A lot of jobs are going to other places. Most of the manufacturing jobs are gone. Our population is getting much older. That’s why we’re here — to maybe learn something from the American people.”

A late surge from the post-Eighties

London’s contemporary art sales last week took place very much in the shadow of New York’s spectacular $1 billion November sales, in which post-war American Abstract Expressionist and Pop Art attracted huge sums. More recent art, from the Eighties on,The term 'glassmosaic control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag.Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic chipcard and hose. seemed flat by comparison and triggered a pre-London sale survey that suggested that confidence in this area was falling away.

However, the evidence of last week’s sales indicates otherwise. Although the £203.5 million taken by Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips paled in comparison with New York, it was high for London February sales, up 9.5 per cent on last year, and included 27 record prices, most of which were for post-Eighties art.

The closest to Abstract Expressionism they got was a vigorously gestural black and white painting from 1962 by the Frenchman Pierre Soulages, who has often been compared to the American Franz Kline. The two had met in New York, and both exhibited at its Kootz Gallery. In November, Kline’s prices jumped to $40 million at auction. Last week, the leap for Soulages was also dramatic, as his 1962 painting far exceeded his auction record to fetch £3.3 million.

But the post-war selection was more remarkable for the solidity of its returns. At Sotheby’s, a small Francis Bacon triptych of self-portraits tripled the price it fetched six years ago from an Italian collector, selling for £13 million to the German tobacco tycoon Jürgen Hall.

At Christie’s, the sombre 1954 Bacon portrait Man in Blue, from the Norwich Union collection, which four years ago did not sell with an estimate of £4 million to £6 million, attracted bidding from several dealers before selling for £5 million. Also at Christie’s, a scarlet 1964 canvas with a single slash down its centre by Lucio Fontana, bought in 1996 for £117,000, sold for close to £4 million to the art consultant Andrew Stramentov.

However, there were more records and bigger mark-ups for recent art. The stand-out record of the week was the £7.6 million given for The Architect’s Home in the Ravine,Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an buymosaic.We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard plasticcard and controllers. painted in 1991 by Edinburgh-born Peter Doig. Originally sold for $10,000 to the accountants Arthur Anderson, it was bought at auction in 2002 by Charles Saatchi for $418,000. In 2007, Saatchi sold it with six other Doigs to Sotheby’s for $11 million. Sotheby’s then sold one of them, White Canoe, to the Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili for £5.7 million, making Doig briefly the most expensive living European artist. The Architect’s Home, meanwhile, was sold in New York, also in 2007, for $3.6 million to an American collector who sold it for a hefty profit last week. The buyer, described by Christie’s as a “private European” (which would include Russia and former Soviet states), was, intriguingly, the same as the buyer for the Soulages.

Other records were obtained for Doig’s former student Hurvin Anderson, for Adrian Ghenie, a Romanian artist recently taken on by the powerful Pace Gallery, and for the recent Turner Prize contender George Shaw, whose early painting of a telephone box sold for a triple estimate £51,650.

There were also records for sculptures of a snowman by Gary Hume, of a fat car by the Austrian Erwin Wurm, for abstract paintings by the Americans Wade Guyton and Carroll Dunham, and for a painting of a bullet hole by Nate Lowman, which sold to New York dealer Stellan Holm for a quadruple estimate £337,250. Artists making paintings with chewing gum (Adam McEwen), Plasticine (Dan Rees – a new Saatchi favourite),This frameless rectangle features a silk screened fused glass replica in a parkingsystem tile and floral motif. and latex (Ryan Sullivan) in the last few years were on a roll.

Similarly, works bought a decade or more ago saw massive returns. A sculpture of a car bonnet by Richard Prince, bought in 1995 for $8,625, sold to London and New York dealer Per Skarstedt for $490,000). A silver painting by Rudolf Stingel was bought 10 years ago for $4,800 and sold for $188,400).

Not all contemporary art is going up. A painting by Franz Ackermann, once favoured by the likes of Saatchi and Frank Cohen, fell from £193,000 in 2006 to £55,000. But while Gerhard Richter’s abstract paintings are no longer gaining value, Damien Hirst’s market, which had been falling, appears to be stabilising.

Almost 70 years after World War II, France is making one of its biggest efforts to trace the Jewish owners of artworks stolen by the Nazis, recovered by the Allies and sent to the country after the war. President Francois Hollande’s government is setting up a group of historians, regulators, archivists and curators to actively track down families, instead of waiting for claimants to come forward. The group starts working in March.

“It may be one of our last chances to find the owners,” said Jean-Pierre Bady, a former director at the culture ministry, who’s a member of a 1999-created Commission for the Compensation of Spoliation Victims and who was instrumental in the formation of the group. “Seventy years is a long time, but it’s never too late to make things right.”

The Nazis seized hundreds of thousands of works of art from Jewish private collections between 1933 and 1945 as part of their policy of racial persecution in what has been seen as the biggest such heist in history. Much of the art was returned to national governments, with unclaimed pieces landing in museums.

In France, the Hollande government’s plan would mark the first effort to reach out to victims of the Nazis since 1995 when former President Jacques Chirac for the first time recognized France’s responsibility for collaborating in anti- Semitic persecutions during the country’s occupation by the Germans, acknowledging the deportation of Jewish people.

Top Chef expected to lure ‘foodies’ to Last Frontier

Last Wednesday marked the premiere showing of the last episode produced in Juneau for the popular cooking competition show Top Chef: Seattle.

Crews filmed, or taped cooking segments last August at various locations around the Capital City, including at a waterfront eatery, a salmon bake, on a nearby glacier, and at the Governor’s House.

All of the local residents and officials were contractually-prohibited from saying anything about the production or even acknowledging that it ever happened. At least until now.

It was frequently called Juneau’s “worst-kept secret” when crewmembers,We maintain a full inventory of all lanyard we manufacture. chef contestants, and judges arrived last August for the week-and-a-half production of two episodes of Top Chef: Seattle.

Location scouts earlier had checked out various locations around town. The owner of Tracy’s Crab Shack, Tracy Labarge, said they were told a week ahead of time that producers were coming. But actually being selected as a site for a cooking challenge? That was last minute.

“So, we actually opened for the day.Source plasticmould Products at Other Truck Parts. We were getting ready to open and to start serving,” said Labarge.

Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development Commissioner Susan Bell said they reached agreement with producers for the Bravo TV show last March and tried to keep it under wraps since then. Sometimes they quietly referred to it around the office only as TC.

“There had been previous conversations about Alaska before,” recalled Bell. “But I think, recognizing that they were filming in Seattle, gave us an excellent way to leverage the fact that they were close,” Bell said.

The state contributed $190,High quality chinamosaic tiles.000 and the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which gets much of its funding from self-assessment of the commercial fleet, kicked in about $60,000 for the production.

State, ASMI, and Juneau Convention and Visitors Bureau officials all say they helped with location scouting, or tracking down props and set dressings.

JCVB’s Elizabeth Arnett said they also suggested a list of Juneau residents to sample the food during a cooking challenge at the Gold Creek Salmon Bake. She estimates that A Mission Productions from Los Angeles brought in as many as 125 crewmembers and put them up in the Prospector, Aspen, and Baranof hotels.

The four chef contestants were put up at Jorgensen House, a new bed-and-breakfast. An estimated dozen locals were hired to work on set as crew or production assistants.

A handful of local businesses also helped. Tim McDonald of Temsco Helicopters in Juneau said they were approached to take eighty cast and crewmembers up to their dog camp on the Mendenhall Glacier.

“It’s going to be good for the state tourism. It’s going to bring more people up here. And, if there are more people up here, (then) I have the possibility of selling a tour to them.”

Bell is hoping the production reaps further economic dividends with a nationwide, double-exposure of both Alaska’s seafood and tourism industries with a “third-party, unbiased commentary on destinations.Make your house a home with Border and carparkmanagementsystem Tiles.”

Juneau, in particular, is featured in roughly two-hours of a top-rated cable television show that’s currently draws over 1.5 million viewers per episode.

“The value of these two shows is about $5.4 million that Juneau would have to spend to get that same sort of publicity,” according to JCVB’s Elizabeth Arnett.

ASMI’s Tyson Fick, meanwhile, calculates the promotional value to the seafood industry at nearly ten-times that, or about $48-million.

“It’s the biggest thing I’ve worked on,” said Fick. “It trends very, very well with our target market: ‘foodies,’ people with enough income so that maybe they’re interested to try Alaskan seafood because it is a for-real premium product.”

They were interviewed on-camera afterward about the salmon and sourdough bread served up by chefs. But Fanning said his comments were severely edited and taken partly out of context. Fanning said producers used the short clip as part of the story that they wanted to tell.

“I was really trying to complement their bread. It came out… kind of sounded a little like food snob which was not my intent,” recalled Fanning.

Fanning and his wife signed non-disclosure agreements preventing them from saying anything about the production until this month, along with a hundred other Juneau participants and handful of business owners like Tracy Labarge.

Local businesses are already capitalizing on the increased visibility.Looking for the Best iphoneheadset? Tracy’s Crab Shack, which is hard to miss next to the cruise ships that dock in the summer, has a Top Chef-themed online sale this month on crab bisque.

“All the judges, chefs, took pictures, signed shirts for us,” said Labarge. “A nice bit of PR for us in the off-season.”

2013年2月16日 星期六

Ducab showcases range of energy cables

Ducab will be prominently represented at stand 7E10, Hall 7, at the 38th edition of Middle East Electricity running from February 17th to 19th 2012 at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre. Held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, MEE is not just the largest power event in the region but also the longest-running.

Ducab's participation at MEE will see it network with existing suppliers and customers, and also reach out to potential clients in new markets. The company's presence at MEE comes on the back of a string of recent project wins, including an Dhs140m contract for the South Al-Shamkha Infrastructure Development project in Abu Dhabi, Dhs57m for Abu Dhabi's Cleveland Clinic project, Dhs20m for Abu Dhabi's Presidential Palace Development project in Abu Dhabi worth Dhs20m, and Dhs10m for the Ras Al Khair project.Creative glass tile and ceramictile tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. The company has also scored projects from the US Government worth Dhs4.4m in Afghanistan.Features useful information about ventilationsystem tiles.

"Ducab's participation at MEE 2013 helps it reach out a diverse audience of potential channel partners, suppliers and customers while reaffirming ties with existing ones. Ducab wants to maintain leadership in local market, but also take its UAE-manufactured, high quality products to regional and international markets. We believe MEE is the right platform to facilitate that expansion," said Colin McKay, GM- Sales & Marketing, Ducab while introducing the new range of "Tuff DuFlex" wires and cables. Ducab is the only BASEC approved cable and wire manufacturer to offer wires operating in stringent conditions ranging from -40deg C to 105deg C

Ducab's MEE participation will serve as a showcase for the company's extensive range of copper and aluminium cable products, including those in the 400kV class, which will soon be offered from its Ducab-HV plant. Other products on display will include the company's FlamBICC fire resistant cables for residential and industrial use, flexible indoor wiring cables, and control & instrumentation cables for the OGP sector.

Ducab's regional project wins in the recent past have also included an Dhs5m contract for the King Abdullah Financial District Development in Saudi Arabia, Dhs100m for the Dubai Airport Congress Building, Dhs17m for the New York University in Abu Dhabi, Dhs51m for GASCO's Habshan Field Development, Dhs40m for Qatar Petroleum and Dhs37m for Al-Shuaiba Power Station in Kuwait.

Ashish Chaturvedy, Marketing Manager, Ducab, said "Ducab's participation at MEE 2013 will allow us to capitalize on the momentum generated by our recent project wins, and show customers and stakeholders what we offer in terms of world class energy infrastructure for a variety of products. For us, MEE is an excellent event to showcase our achievements and products, and develop sustained, mutually beneficial relationships for the future.You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth Original buymosaic Descriptions."

MEE 2013 will host over 1000 exhibitors from 56 countries. It is the region's largest power event, attracting leading names in the power, lighting, new, renewable and nuclear sectors.

"Power is a vital component for modern urban and industrial development. At MEE 2013, we look forward to demonstrating how we can contribute to infrastructural development for iconic projects with our range of extremely high quality, stringently tested wire and cable products,Bottle cutters let you turn old parkingsystem and wine bottles into bottle art!" concluded Chaturvedy.

Favourite to win a final, four-year term in today’s presidential election, Correa has brought stability to this notoriously unstable nation, which shuffled through seven presidents in 10 years before he took office in 2007.

He has become a forceful voice of Latin America’s left, befriending ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez while leading a softer socialist “revolution” than his more radical ally.

“The characteristics of my personality are positive for Ecuadorans. I am decisive, direct, objective, rational,” says the US-educated economist. “But if I don’t please someone, what can we do?”

“They didn’t elected me to be Mr Nice Guy to please everybody, but to move the nation forward. And we are undoubtedly making history,” says Correa, 49, who is constitutionally limited to one more run at the presidency.

Correa has become popular in this Andean nation of 15mn people through social programmes funded with the Opec nation’s oil proceeds, and his job approval rating has soared to 80%.The lanyard series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics and listellos.

His closest rivals in today’s election are conservative banker Guillermo Lasso and former president Lucio Gutierrez, but they are far behind and Correa is expected to secure enough votes to avoid a run-off.

“People feel that there is someone steering the ship and this generates trust because it brings more work,” said sociologist Hernan Reyes.

“He generates trust with the level of work he delivers, the demands he has on his subordinates and the amount of finished public works.”

Correa has insisted that he is not “anti-capitalist or anti-Yankee,” stating that the left has committed the mistake of denying space to the market and capitalist economy.

But he has also antagonised big business and media groups, seizing the assets of bankers involved in corruption scandals and accusing private news organisations of conspiring to destabilise him. And his plans for large-scale mining have angered indigenous communities.

Correa was born into a lower middle-class family in the southwestern port of Guayaquil, the country’s industrial centre. His father spent time in jail in the US after he was caught carrying narcotics as a “drug mule.”

He was able to study thanks to scholarships which took him to the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, before earning a doctorate’s degree in economics from the University of Illinois in the US.