A Seattle-area couple is in custody for allegedly holding captive and
torturing the man's 13-year-old brother for three months -- including
driving a nail through the boy's hand and keeping him in a cellar for
days without food, the prosecutor said Wednesday.
Brandon Gunn,
27, and his wife Viviana, 34, are in the Kitsap County Jail outside
Seattle on $500,000 bail each, charged with kidnapping, unlawful
imprisonment and four counts of assault, county prosecutor Cami Lewis
said.Brandon's brother is from Atlanta and went in May to stay with his
brother for the summer, Kitsap County Deputy Sheriff Scott Wilson said.
"We've
been crying for days," the teen's aunt, Marsha Thomas-Jones, told CNN
Atlanta affiliate WSB. "My sister is devastated."The alleged torture
began as early as May 1 and lasted until the teenager escaped from his
brother's cellar two weeks ago, according to the prosecutor's complaint,
filed Tuesday.Thomas-Jones said the family suspected something was
wrong months ago when communication ceased, and it tried unsuccessfully
to get law enforcement involved early, WSB reported.
The
attorney for Brandon Gunn, Michele Taylor, was given the case only
Wednesday and has not received any discovery documents, said her
paralegal, Samantha Badkin. She said they don't expect to speak to their
client until at least next Tuesday.A voicemail message for Viviana
Gunn's attorney, Jeniece Lacross, was not returned late Wednesday.
According
to the probable cause certificate filed Monday by the Kitsap County
Sheriff's Office, the boy was sent to the Gunns' garage where he was
duct-taped to a chair with tape over his eyes and mouth, then beaten in
the head, torso and legs with a baseball bat and metal bars, losing
consciousness at times.Another time, the couple put the boy's hand in a
bench vise, tightened it, and drove a nail through the his hand with a
hammer, the certificate says. The boy said that time, he could see them
doing it.
The Gunns duct-taped his hands and hung him from a
rafter in the garage, then beat him; they also stapled his right palm
with a construction stapler, heated a knife and cut him with it,
according to the certificate.The couple forced the boy to stay naked in a
portable dog kennel twice for two to three days at a time, with no food
or water, the certificate says. He also was forced to stay in the dark
cellar for four days, and when he escaped to get food, he was punished
by being beaten with a baseball bat, it says.
The boy said the
couple called the abuse "punishment sessions" for not doing chores or
breaking household rules, and that the "sessions" would last for two to
three hours, according to Deputy Sheriff Wilson.When the boy escaped, he
had been duct-taped but managed to escape by moving his hands in front
of him, peeling the tape off his mouth,We rounded up 30 bridesmaids
dresses in every color and style that are both easy on the eye and
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then chewing through the tape binding his hands, Wilson said. He forced
open the cellar door and then lived on the streets for two weeks,
stealing food when he could, Wilson said.
He was sleeping in a
bus shelter on a Navy housing complex last Friday night when two Navy
security officers found the boy and saw his injuries, Wilson said. They
immediately sent the boy to a hospital where detectives interviewed
him.Browse our oilpaintingsforsales collection
from the granitetrade.net!They saw injuries to the boy's head, face,
chest, abdomen, back, arms,Our top picks for the cableties and gear, legs,Design and order your own custom rfidtag with
personalized message and artwork. hands and feet, ranging from fresh
open wounds to wounds that were in the process of healing, the
certificate of probable cause says.The doctor also found a broken piece
of metal in the boy's hand, possibly from the nail."In the first six
hours they were able to develop enough probable cause for the arrest of
the brother and the brother's wife," Wilson said. "they were arrested at
7 a.How to change your dash lights to doublesidedtape this
is how I have done mine.m. at their house."When detectives interviewed
Brandon Gunn, he denied abusing the boy, saying only that he gave him a
"whooping" with a belt on his backside a few times.
Detectives
searched the home and found blood stains on the wall, door, bench vise,
baseball bat and chair, the certificate of probable cause says. They
also found the dog kennel and staple gun, and a strong smell of urine in
a corner of the cellar where the boy said he was forced to urinate, it
says.
Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey is expected to come under
pressure from the National Party Coalition partners to oppose the deal
if the Coaltion wins on September 7, with Nationals leader Warren Truss
and Liberal senator Bill Heffernan publicly opposing the takeover.
Mr
Cobb said the party was serious about overhauling foreign investment
and was committed to lowering the threshold for FIRB approval of
agricultural land and agribusiness acqusitions and establishing and
maintaining a register of foreign ownership of agricultural land.
"FIRB
does need business people on it and I think we recognise that because
at the moment is bueauracracies and people out of Treasury. Obviously it
needs some good business brains and I think that we would look at that
pretty hard."
But Trade minister Richard Marles has warned
Australia needs a more mature debate about foreign ownership and warned
that xenophobia would stand in the way of Australia securing a Free
Trade Agreement with China.
In comments to the Australian / Wall
Street Journal Global Food Forum two weeks ago Mr Marles said foreign
investment was vital to the countrys ambitions of becoming a bigger food
expoprter to the region.
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2013年8月30日 星期五
2013年6月27日 星期四
Best Hope For Sinking Bayou
The 6,000 person town, a proudly Cajun community one hour south of
New Orleans, is littered with rusted hulls left to rot on the banks of
its central canal, monuments to indifference. The swamp-town equivalent
of leaving cars up on blocks in the front yard.
Yet it's here, in a hamlet of struggling fishermen and oil rig roughnecks, that 72-year-old Webster Pierce has tinkered up an invention that just may save the bayou from extinction.
His brainchild, the Wave Robber, is a floating shield against the relentless waves threatening to swallow the region whole. The device recently won top prize at one of New Orleans' premiere startup competitions. And it may just be the bayou's last, best hope at a future. But it wasn't pioneered in a university lab or by a team of engineers. Pierce built it using an old washing machine motor in his backyard.
"We're losing a football field of land every hour," says Pierce as he shuffles around his "daddy's house," which now serves as a makeshift office. Amid the folksy tchotchkes like a "Cajun barometer" (a piece of rope), he's stocked his kitchen HQ with charts and photos that tell a frightening and tragic story of land loss. Since the 1930s, coastal erosion has claimed nearly 1,900 square miles of South Louisiana's land.
Pierce, who has never lived outside Cut Off, is the kind of local's local who stops by every table in the catfish joint to shake hands. He talks about the vanishing coast with a strained voice and glassy eyes, like he's recalling an old friend who passed before his time. His red pickup truck struggling up the side of an overgrown levee, he points out a stretch of ocean that used to be his favorite field for hunting deer and rabbit before it was swept out to sea.
"This isn't just wetlands that are disappearing," he says. "It's the people, culture, and the economy of Louisiana."
By the time his old truck sputters over the top of the levee and down to the shoreline, though, his demeanor reverts to its resting state of jolly Cajun. He's at once proud grandfather and excited child as he trundles through the weeds and hops over mounds of fire ants, excitedly pushing through the long grass at the water's edge to reveal his baby, his prototype, and the project he vows to devote "what's left of his life" to: The Wave Robber.
It looks like a giant cheese grater. Eighteen pipes run through three rows of stacked plastic shelves. Water and sediment splash through the pipes, sucking the life out of oncoming waves and spitting the sand and silt into an enclosed area between the device and the shoreline, where it piles up and forms new land.
While seemingly simple,You've probably seen handsfreeaccess at some point. the process was enough to impress the judges at last month's Water Challenge, an annual startup competition in New Orleans for innovative approaches to water-related issues.
Finalists included EMS Green, creators of a vegetative wall that helps restore eroding shorelines, and ABS Technologies, developers of a smartphone app that tracks Louisiana oysters. But it was Pierce, the wild-card from Cut Off--a region known more for its crab boils than its contraptions--who beat out 28 other teams and took home the $50,000 first-place prize.
That seed money is only a sliver of what's up for grabs, reports suggest. Louisiana officials recently released a list of coastal restoration projects that they hope to pay for, at least in part, with money the state receives from BP as compensation for the 2010 oil spill. The projects are part of officials' 50-year, $50 billion master plan to stop land loss and even reverse it.
Pierce expects the government to be his biggest customer. And while the agency behind the $50 billion plan, the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, hasn't expressed an interest in the Wave Robber, he's in talks with the National Resources Conservation Service, a branch of the USDA, to outfit a 20-mile stretch of shoreline with thousands of the devices. The build-out would carry a price tag of roughly $88 million, Pierce estimates.
To hear Pierce tell it, the Wave Robber couldn't have come from anywhere but the swamp. "I cut my teeth working in these marshes," says the former oil worker turned levee district official, who watched for decades as the community's man-made barriers failed to stop the land from drowning.
Rocks were durable, but would sink in soft soil. Oyster reefs did a decent job of collecting sediment from the waves, but when oil and shipping companies dredged new waterways, allowing saltwater into the marshes, the oysters would die. The most effective fix Pierce saw came at the end of every Christmas season, when locals planted their trees along the shoreline.
"The pine needles sliced up those waves," he recalls,Did you know that plasticcard chains can be used for more than just business. "and they'd catch some of the sediment too. But soon enough,We printers print with traceable cleaningsydney to optimize supply chain management. the trees would rot and float off,If you are looking for fridgemagnet for your bathroom walls. and the waves would return to the shoreline, gradually eatin' at it like a piranha."
Pierce dreamt up the Wave Robber in 2009. He attached a flywheel to an old washing machine agitator in his backyard to generate waves of sand-infused water for testing. When the machine proved it could sap 80% of a wave's energy and collect sediment at an impressive rate, he filed, and eventually secured, a patent on the Wave Robber.
Now the real tests begin. Three years on the bayou,An cleaningservicesydney is a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building. including hurricane seasons, as the USDA keeps a close eye on whether Pierce's prototype can withstand harsh weather while delivering on its promise to rebuild the coastline. In one test, researchers sent 100 pounds of sand through the Wave Robber, and it captured 30 pounds of it in four hours, Pierce says. Ideally, the units would line the coast, depositing silt around the clock and reversing decades of damage.
Land loss is just one of many challenges born out of Louisiana's distinct climate that have sparked a wave of innovation in the state and made it a perfect proving ground for socially-driven startups.
After Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the startup rate in New Orleans doubled in just three years as swarms of new ventures launched to tackle problems in regional health care, education, and the environment. Then, in 2012, the startup rate lept to the ninth-highest in nation. "Every hurricane has a silver lining," Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs' biography and a New Orleans native, told an audience of local business owners last year.
Pierce, however, would argue that swamp ingenuity is nothing new. His uncles made their fortune in the 1950s by inventing the Cheramie Marsh Buggies, tractors with 12-foot steel tires that allowed oil men to survey previously inaccessible marshland. He hung around their shop as a boy, where he developed a knack for tinkering.
Click on their website www.artsunlight.com for more information.
Yet it's here, in a hamlet of struggling fishermen and oil rig roughnecks, that 72-year-old Webster Pierce has tinkered up an invention that just may save the bayou from extinction.
His brainchild, the Wave Robber, is a floating shield against the relentless waves threatening to swallow the region whole. The device recently won top prize at one of New Orleans' premiere startup competitions. And it may just be the bayou's last, best hope at a future. But it wasn't pioneered in a university lab or by a team of engineers. Pierce built it using an old washing machine motor in his backyard.
"We're losing a football field of land every hour," says Pierce as he shuffles around his "daddy's house," which now serves as a makeshift office. Amid the folksy tchotchkes like a "Cajun barometer" (a piece of rope), he's stocked his kitchen HQ with charts and photos that tell a frightening and tragic story of land loss. Since the 1930s, coastal erosion has claimed nearly 1,900 square miles of South Louisiana's land.
Pierce, who has never lived outside Cut Off, is the kind of local's local who stops by every table in the catfish joint to shake hands. He talks about the vanishing coast with a strained voice and glassy eyes, like he's recalling an old friend who passed before his time. His red pickup truck struggling up the side of an overgrown levee, he points out a stretch of ocean that used to be his favorite field for hunting deer and rabbit before it was swept out to sea.
"This isn't just wetlands that are disappearing," he says. "It's the people, culture, and the economy of Louisiana."
By the time his old truck sputters over the top of the levee and down to the shoreline, though, his demeanor reverts to its resting state of jolly Cajun. He's at once proud grandfather and excited child as he trundles through the weeds and hops over mounds of fire ants, excitedly pushing through the long grass at the water's edge to reveal his baby, his prototype, and the project he vows to devote "what's left of his life" to: The Wave Robber.
It looks like a giant cheese grater. Eighteen pipes run through three rows of stacked plastic shelves. Water and sediment splash through the pipes, sucking the life out of oncoming waves and spitting the sand and silt into an enclosed area between the device and the shoreline, where it piles up and forms new land.
While seemingly simple,You've probably seen handsfreeaccess at some point. the process was enough to impress the judges at last month's Water Challenge, an annual startup competition in New Orleans for innovative approaches to water-related issues.
Finalists included EMS Green, creators of a vegetative wall that helps restore eroding shorelines, and ABS Technologies, developers of a smartphone app that tracks Louisiana oysters. But it was Pierce, the wild-card from Cut Off--a region known more for its crab boils than its contraptions--who beat out 28 other teams and took home the $50,000 first-place prize.
That seed money is only a sliver of what's up for grabs, reports suggest. Louisiana officials recently released a list of coastal restoration projects that they hope to pay for, at least in part, with money the state receives from BP as compensation for the 2010 oil spill. The projects are part of officials' 50-year, $50 billion master plan to stop land loss and even reverse it.
Pierce expects the government to be his biggest customer. And while the agency behind the $50 billion plan, the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, hasn't expressed an interest in the Wave Robber, he's in talks with the National Resources Conservation Service, a branch of the USDA, to outfit a 20-mile stretch of shoreline with thousands of the devices. The build-out would carry a price tag of roughly $88 million, Pierce estimates.
To hear Pierce tell it, the Wave Robber couldn't have come from anywhere but the swamp. "I cut my teeth working in these marshes," says the former oil worker turned levee district official, who watched for decades as the community's man-made barriers failed to stop the land from drowning.
Rocks were durable, but would sink in soft soil. Oyster reefs did a decent job of collecting sediment from the waves, but when oil and shipping companies dredged new waterways, allowing saltwater into the marshes, the oysters would die. The most effective fix Pierce saw came at the end of every Christmas season, when locals planted their trees along the shoreline.
"The pine needles sliced up those waves," he recalls,Did you know that plasticcard chains can be used for more than just business. "and they'd catch some of the sediment too. But soon enough,We printers print with traceable cleaningsydney to optimize supply chain management. the trees would rot and float off,If you are looking for fridgemagnet for your bathroom walls. and the waves would return to the shoreline, gradually eatin' at it like a piranha."
Pierce dreamt up the Wave Robber in 2009. He attached a flywheel to an old washing machine agitator in his backyard to generate waves of sand-infused water for testing. When the machine proved it could sap 80% of a wave's energy and collect sediment at an impressive rate, he filed, and eventually secured, a patent on the Wave Robber.
Now the real tests begin. Three years on the bayou,An cleaningservicesydney is a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building. including hurricane seasons, as the USDA keeps a close eye on whether Pierce's prototype can withstand harsh weather while delivering on its promise to rebuild the coastline. In one test, researchers sent 100 pounds of sand through the Wave Robber, and it captured 30 pounds of it in four hours, Pierce says. Ideally, the units would line the coast, depositing silt around the clock and reversing decades of damage.
Land loss is just one of many challenges born out of Louisiana's distinct climate that have sparked a wave of innovation in the state and made it a perfect proving ground for socially-driven startups.
After Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the startup rate in New Orleans doubled in just three years as swarms of new ventures launched to tackle problems in regional health care, education, and the environment. Then, in 2012, the startup rate lept to the ninth-highest in nation. "Every hurricane has a silver lining," Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs' biography and a New Orleans native, told an audience of local business owners last year.
Pierce, however, would argue that swamp ingenuity is nothing new. His uncles made their fortune in the 1950s by inventing the Cheramie Marsh Buggies, tractors with 12-foot steel tires that allowed oil men to survey previously inaccessible marshland. He hung around their shop as a boy, where he developed a knack for tinkering.
Click on their website www.artsunlight.com for more information.
2013年6月25日 星期二
Russian government attacks public health system
The
assault on health care comes alongside deepening attacks on public
education, where the imposition of austerity measures means that one in
five colleges and 30 percent of high schools are to be closed due to
inefficiency. Layers of the ruling elite have also long eyed Russias
pension system as a target for cost saving. Last week, Putin called for
tightening the countrys fiscal policy.
The planned cuts to the health care system and other social benefits are deeply unpopular. In a poll by the Levada Centre in 2012, most respondents reported that the miserable state of the health system was the countrys main problem. Across the country, demonstrations, strikes and hunger strikes by thousands of patients, doctors and nurses against the closure of medical facilities, wage cuts and the elimination of free health care have taken place in recent months.
In many cities, public health facilities have been privatised since the beginning of the year. In May, Moscow announced the partial privatisation of one of the citys main hospitals. Forty percent of hospital facilities now belong to the city, while 60 percent were sold off to a private investor, where services will be provided for a fee.
The Russian daily Gazeta.r u reported that the share of facilities held by the private investor is expected to increase. The Moscow city government has already stated that this privatisation is only the prelude to a comprehensive restructuring of the citys hospitals.
At the same time, departments are being closed in state hospitals and maternity facilities nationwide. Rural areas in particular are affected.You can make your own more powerful cableties. For example, in the central Russian region of Yaroslavl, departments have been closed in dozens of maternity centres. In many villages and small towns, pregnant women are without any medical care. Due to the collapse of the infrastructure since the 1990s, the nearest cities for villagers are hard to reach. For pregnant women or the sick, in particular, it is all but impossible to travel long distances on the poorly maintained roads.Aulaundry is a leading drycabinet and equipment supplier.
Since the beginning of the year, as part of the restructuring of the health system, the payment of medical staff has been outsourced from the state budget and delegated to region governments. The result has been wage cuts and staff reductions. In many regions, doctors and nurses saw their wages slashed by up to 10 percent at the beginning of the year.
While the Ministry of Health has set a minimum salary of 33,000 roubles (about 775) for physicians, a doctor from a town near Moscow who participated in the April demonstrations reported that he now receives only 15,000 roubles (350), plus 4,000 roubles (94) as a bonus, after 30 years of service.
The impending cuts to the health care system will also exacerbate the already serious shortage of specialists in medicine. The Ministry of Health said it lacked some 152,000 workers last year.
Legally, a free health care system still exists in Russia. In truth, however, there is a two-tier health system, in which only the upper middle class and the wealthy can afford access to appropriate medical treatment. Many state hospitals have been privatised since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and those that remain are largely inaccessible to the majority of the population. At the same time, state-run clinics are overcrowded, their staff underpaid and their technical equipment obsolete.
In parallel with the free treatment supposedly provided in public hospitals, patients can purchase additional services. According to a survey by the ROMIR Centre, last year 65 percent of all Russians paid for medical treatment and 20 percent paid their doctors informally. The services offered by state institutions are usually so bad that payment is unavoidable, with patients seeking treatment in private institutions in cases of serious illness or rare diseases.
Moreover,The term 'bondcleaningsydney control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. access to medicines is often extremely difficult, if not impossible. In Moscow, following the latest cuts,A quality paper cutter or paper endofleasecleaningsydney can make your company's presentation stand out. only 50 percent of the required medications for patients at public institutions will be available. Currently, drugs for patients suffering from rare diseases are simply not available. Overall, Moscow lacks an estimated 6 billion roubles (141 million) needed to meet the existing demand for medications, according to the citys health department.
The cuts and privatisation are exacerbating a vicious circle that has been developing for years: The new privatisation measures will worsen health care in the remaining state institutions, which are diminishing in number, and at the same time, generally push up prices for medical care. For many people, hospital stays and treatment are no longer affordable. At the same time, salaries for medical staff continue to fall to the level of hunger wages, so that doctors and nurses are forced to take informal payments from patients merely to be able to survive.
The aim of this policy is to eliminate free health care. Given the prevalence of poverty in Russia and the precarious financial position of many more, this means denying access to medical care for the vast majority of the population.
The destruction of the already dysfunctional health care system is especially dramatic given the poor level of health of the population. Decades of brutal poverty and social attacks have ruined the health of a large part of the population. A survey by the Moscow Higher School of Economics reported 46 percent of respondents aged 15 years and older were chronically ill. Between 1990 and 2010, the overall sickness rate increased continuously year over year. Only since 2010 has there been a slight decline.
The illness rate is higher the younger the generation. In 2008, only 10 percent of Russian children and adolescents were perfectly healthy,Aulaundry is a leading drycabinet and equipment supplier. according to the online Russian medical journal Medcom. Overall, the mortality rate is 1.4 times higher than the EU average, and life expectancy for men is lower than in third-world countries such as Bangladesh and Algeria. The Moscow Higher School of Economics also found that among the working-age population, the probability of dying is almost twice as high as in Europe. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the number of cases of mortality due to curable diseases (nutritional deficiencies, infections or parasites) has risen. For men, the number of such cases has doubled since 1990 and tripled in women.
Miserable working conditions also contribute to the high death rate. According to official figures, about one third of all employees are in jobs that do not meet minimum safety standards.
Living conditions for the population have deteriorated dramatically as result of the social counter-revolution of the last two decades. According to Medcom, half of Russias 140 million people in 2008 had no access to clean water, and a large part of the working population cannot afford a healthy diet. Fresh vegetables, fruit, fish, milk and meat are a luxury for many.
Official data indicate that almost 1 percent (0.8) of the population between 15 and 50 is HIV-positive; last year alone, the incidence rate increased by 12.5 percent. The mortality rate for HIV patients in 2012 grew by 14 percent. Tuberculosis has also spread enormously. In the last 15 years, the number of tuberculosis cases has more than doubled. Russia is ranked 13 in the world for countries with the highest levels of tuberculosis.
Click on their website www.drycabinets.net for more information.
The planned cuts to the health care system and other social benefits are deeply unpopular. In a poll by the Levada Centre in 2012, most respondents reported that the miserable state of the health system was the countrys main problem. Across the country, demonstrations, strikes and hunger strikes by thousands of patients, doctors and nurses against the closure of medical facilities, wage cuts and the elimination of free health care have taken place in recent months.
In many cities, public health facilities have been privatised since the beginning of the year. In May, Moscow announced the partial privatisation of one of the citys main hospitals. Forty percent of hospital facilities now belong to the city, while 60 percent were sold off to a private investor, where services will be provided for a fee.
The Russian daily Gazeta.r u reported that the share of facilities held by the private investor is expected to increase. The Moscow city government has already stated that this privatisation is only the prelude to a comprehensive restructuring of the citys hospitals.
At the same time, departments are being closed in state hospitals and maternity facilities nationwide. Rural areas in particular are affected.You can make your own more powerful cableties. For example, in the central Russian region of Yaroslavl, departments have been closed in dozens of maternity centres. In many villages and small towns, pregnant women are without any medical care. Due to the collapse of the infrastructure since the 1990s, the nearest cities for villagers are hard to reach. For pregnant women or the sick, in particular, it is all but impossible to travel long distances on the poorly maintained roads.Aulaundry is a leading drycabinet and equipment supplier.
Since the beginning of the year, as part of the restructuring of the health system, the payment of medical staff has been outsourced from the state budget and delegated to region governments. The result has been wage cuts and staff reductions. In many regions, doctors and nurses saw their wages slashed by up to 10 percent at the beginning of the year.
While the Ministry of Health has set a minimum salary of 33,000 roubles (about 775) for physicians, a doctor from a town near Moscow who participated in the April demonstrations reported that he now receives only 15,000 roubles (350), plus 4,000 roubles (94) as a bonus, after 30 years of service.
The impending cuts to the health care system will also exacerbate the already serious shortage of specialists in medicine. The Ministry of Health said it lacked some 152,000 workers last year.
Legally, a free health care system still exists in Russia. In truth, however, there is a two-tier health system, in which only the upper middle class and the wealthy can afford access to appropriate medical treatment. Many state hospitals have been privatised since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and those that remain are largely inaccessible to the majority of the population. At the same time, state-run clinics are overcrowded, their staff underpaid and their technical equipment obsolete.
In parallel with the free treatment supposedly provided in public hospitals, patients can purchase additional services. According to a survey by the ROMIR Centre, last year 65 percent of all Russians paid for medical treatment and 20 percent paid their doctors informally. The services offered by state institutions are usually so bad that payment is unavoidable, with patients seeking treatment in private institutions in cases of serious illness or rare diseases.
Moreover,The term 'bondcleaningsydney control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. access to medicines is often extremely difficult, if not impossible. In Moscow, following the latest cuts,A quality paper cutter or paper endofleasecleaningsydney can make your company's presentation stand out. only 50 percent of the required medications for patients at public institutions will be available. Currently, drugs for patients suffering from rare diseases are simply not available. Overall, Moscow lacks an estimated 6 billion roubles (141 million) needed to meet the existing demand for medications, according to the citys health department.
The cuts and privatisation are exacerbating a vicious circle that has been developing for years: The new privatisation measures will worsen health care in the remaining state institutions, which are diminishing in number, and at the same time, generally push up prices for medical care. For many people, hospital stays and treatment are no longer affordable. At the same time, salaries for medical staff continue to fall to the level of hunger wages, so that doctors and nurses are forced to take informal payments from patients merely to be able to survive.
The aim of this policy is to eliminate free health care. Given the prevalence of poverty in Russia and the precarious financial position of many more, this means denying access to medical care for the vast majority of the population.
The destruction of the already dysfunctional health care system is especially dramatic given the poor level of health of the population. Decades of brutal poverty and social attacks have ruined the health of a large part of the population. A survey by the Moscow Higher School of Economics reported 46 percent of respondents aged 15 years and older were chronically ill. Between 1990 and 2010, the overall sickness rate increased continuously year over year. Only since 2010 has there been a slight decline.
The illness rate is higher the younger the generation. In 2008, only 10 percent of Russian children and adolescents were perfectly healthy,Aulaundry is a leading drycabinet and equipment supplier. according to the online Russian medical journal Medcom. Overall, the mortality rate is 1.4 times higher than the EU average, and life expectancy for men is lower than in third-world countries such as Bangladesh and Algeria. The Moscow Higher School of Economics also found that among the working-age population, the probability of dying is almost twice as high as in Europe. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the number of cases of mortality due to curable diseases (nutritional deficiencies, infections or parasites) has risen. For men, the number of such cases has doubled since 1990 and tripled in women.
Miserable working conditions also contribute to the high death rate. According to official figures, about one third of all employees are in jobs that do not meet minimum safety standards.
Living conditions for the population have deteriorated dramatically as result of the social counter-revolution of the last two decades. According to Medcom, half of Russias 140 million people in 2008 had no access to clean water, and a large part of the working population cannot afford a healthy diet. Fresh vegetables, fruit, fish, milk and meat are a luxury for many.
Official data indicate that almost 1 percent (0.8) of the population between 15 and 50 is HIV-positive; last year alone, the incidence rate increased by 12.5 percent. The mortality rate for HIV patients in 2012 grew by 14 percent. Tuberculosis has also spread enormously. In the last 15 years, the number of tuberculosis cases has more than doubled. Russia is ranked 13 in the world for countries with the highest levels of tuberculosis.
2013年3月4日 星期一
Education Still on Deck at Dominican Academies
When sports diversity advocate Charles Farrell first traveled to the
Dominican Republic in 2000 as part of a blue-ribbon commission examining
how to improve Major League Baseball's academies there, he was appalled
at what he saw: straw mats for beds, bars on the doors, and nothing but
cheese sandwiches for dinner. When he asked his host about the team's
education program, he was shown a room with a card table, four plastic
chairs, and a blackboard, all next to a bathroom with a chronically
clogged toilet. "So part of our report was: You need to fix this," he
says.
Four years later, Farrell returned to the island for a conference and led a workshop with prospects on financial planning. The first thing he was asked was how to open a bank account. "These are 16-year-olds who potentially are going to receive millions of dollars, and the kid doesn't even know how to open a bank account," he says.
These days, as head of the nonprofit Dominican Republic Sports Education Academy, Farrell hopes to provide Dominican ballplayers with an alternative to the current system. While American prospects must complete high school to sign with a major league team, Dominican teens can sign as young as 16; often, that means hooking up with a buscón, or a local trainer-agent, to prepare for months or even years before becoming contract-eligible. Farrell's DRSEA proposes a different route, one that would allow Dominican teens to be part of a training and college prep program focused on getting them scholarships to American universities. The DRSEA opened its doors this past January; while Farrell had to scale down initial plans for 100 players down to just 15 due to budget constraints, he's optimistic that the idea will catch on. If grads end up with jobs in baseball, great; if not, they'll have an education and can serve as role models for future young Dominicans — whether or not they're baseball players. "We joke sometimes that we'll be proud to have the next Sammy Sosa come out of the academy," Farrell says, "but we'll be equally proud to have the next Dr. Sammy Sosa."
But Farrell's project, while well intentioned, would affect a minuscule percentage of the thousands of baseball-playing teens in the Dominican Republic — let alone the 1,200 or so at major league academies there every year. Every MLB team currently has some sort of education program; at the Pittsburgh Pirates' academy, for instance, players take mandatory classes every afternoon, while the San Diego Padres provide mandatory on-site English and computer classes. The problem is that most teams provide their players little more than baseball-centric survival English — and see no reason to act as a backstop for a struggling Dominican public education system. "You're gonna have some great ones, you're gonna have some middle of the road,Shop the web's best selection of precious gemstones and chipcard at wholesale prices. and you've got some other ones that could be better," says Rafael Pérez, head of MLB's Dominican operations, of teams' education programs. "And our job right now is to raise that level but still give enough room to each club to have their own individuality."
Pérez is uniquely situated to make that change happen. A Dominican who played college ball at the University of South Alabama, he opened MLB's Dominican office in 2000, and before taking his current job he worked for the New York Mets under ex-general manager Omar Minaya. Education reform has long been one of Pérez's points of emphasis, and in September he helped introduce a new program that will provide job training and schooling for Dominican players released by major league teams.
As for the players still at the academies? Given MLB's reluctance to regulate the buscónes, or even make sure that teams have certified athletic trainers at the academies, getting the teams on board for a uniform educational program for Latin American prospects seems unlikely. But the benefits, says Minaya, now with the San Diego Padres, far outweigh the costs.
"If we educate them and we do the right thing by them, they're going to be good representatives — even if they don't make it," he says. "And the majority of them don't make it. Let's not forget that."
As riders, our war with Boston-area cab drivers is fraught with grievances. For years, we have bolted on fares, acted boorishly,High quality chinamosaic tiles. and vomited in the back seat. (Oh, we have definitely vomited in the back seat.) For their part, cabbies have stretched fares, not known how to get places, and chafed at having to accept credit cards. This last offense has been the biggest flash point lately. Because the credit card readers in taxis charge drivers a 5 or 6 percent processing fee—much higher than the rate paid by retail stores—cabbies feel like they’re getting robbed when we use plastic.Stock up now and start saving on smartcard at Dollar Days. Tales of drivers with “broken” readers—broken until riders profess they have no cash, that is—are common.We offer the largest range of bobblehead online.
So I reacted with great trepidation one recent night when, at the end of a ride from Cambridge to Brookline, a friend pulled out her Visa. To my surprise, the driver took it and, lo, didn’t utter a complaint. He swiped the card through a square white attachment on his smartphone and handed the thing back without so much as a frown. “Do you get a better rate with that?” I asked. Provided by a company called Square, the device, along with its corresponding app, allows smartphones to run credit cards. “Yeah,” the driver said, “3 percent.”
Actually, Square charges just a 2.75 percent processing fee. It also guarantees deposits by the next day—a big deal for drivers who are used to getting cash immediately. The device has become increasingly popular among local cabbies, who typically pay all their fees up front and then keep every dollar in fares they make. In other words, the processing fees directly reduce what goes into their pockets. “We are seeing it pop up in more and more vehicles,” says Corey Pilz, of the Cambridge License Commission, which regulates taxis for the city. Square and other mobile-payment apps, such as Uber and Hailo—both of which let riders hail and pay for cabs with smartphone apps—may not solve every conflict between riders and drivers, but “it’s definitely a bridge,” Pilz says.
Of course, there’s a catch. And it’s a big one. It is illegal for cab drivers in the city of Boston to use Square. Cabbies are required to be members of a radio company—a group that provides communication for drivers and directs them to riders—and those associations have all contracted exclusively with one of two mobile-payment companies, Verifone and Creative Mobile Technologies. Those are the companies that set the high rates and profit from them.
That hasn’t stopped all Boston drivers—who are required by law to accept credit cards—from trying to pay less in fees. “I do know for a fact some of them are [using Square],” says Steve Sullivan, the general manager of Metro Cab, one of the five big radio companies in Boston. Sullivan says he believes that the number of Boston drivers using the app is relatively small, and that most of the ones who do are just keeping it as a backup, in case their normal credit card readers go out.Trade Warehouse have partnered with one of the worlds largest solarlight producers. But since the evidence is purely anecdotal, and it would be difficult for authorities to tell if a driver were using Square, it’s hard to know how prevalent use of the app is in the city.
Four years later, Farrell returned to the island for a conference and led a workshop with prospects on financial planning. The first thing he was asked was how to open a bank account. "These are 16-year-olds who potentially are going to receive millions of dollars, and the kid doesn't even know how to open a bank account," he says.
These days, as head of the nonprofit Dominican Republic Sports Education Academy, Farrell hopes to provide Dominican ballplayers with an alternative to the current system. While American prospects must complete high school to sign with a major league team, Dominican teens can sign as young as 16; often, that means hooking up with a buscón, or a local trainer-agent, to prepare for months or even years before becoming contract-eligible. Farrell's DRSEA proposes a different route, one that would allow Dominican teens to be part of a training and college prep program focused on getting them scholarships to American universities. The DRSEA opened its doors this past January; while Farrell had to scale down initial plans for 100 players down to just 15 due to budget constraints, he's optimistic that the idea will catch on. If grads end up with jobs in baseball, great; if not, they'll have an education and can serve as role models for future young Dominicans — whether or not they're baseball players. "We joke sometimes that we'll be proud to have the next Sammy Sosa come out of the academy," Farrell says, "but we'll be equally proud to have the next Dr. Sammy Sosa."
But Farrell's project, while well intentioned, would affect a minuscule percentage of the thousands of baseball-playing teens in the Dominican Republic — let alone the 1,200 or so at major league academies there every year. Every MLB team currently has some sort of education program; at the Pittsburgh Pirates' academy, for instance, players take mandatory classes every afternoon, while the San Diego Padres provide mandatory on-site English and computer classes. The problem is that most teams provide their players little more than baseball-centric survival English — and see no reason to act as a backstop for a struggling Dominican public education system. "You're gonna have some great ones, you're gonna have some middle of the road,Shop the web's best selection of precious gemstones and chipcard at wholesale prices. and you've got some other ones that could be better," says Rafael Pérez, head of MLB's Dominican operations, of teams' education programs. "And our job right now is to raise that level but still give enough room to each club to have their own individuality."
Pérez is uniquely situated to make that change happen. A Dominican who played college ball at the University of South Alabama, he opened MLB's Dominican office in 2000, and before taking his current job he worked for the New York Mets under ex-general manager Omar Minaya. Education reform has long been one of Pérez's points of emphasis, and in September he helped introduce a new program that will provide job training and schooling for Dominican players released by major league teams.
As for the players still at the academies? Given MLB's reluctance to regulate the buscónes, or even make sure that teams have certified athletic trainers at the academies, getting the teams on board for a uniform educational program for Latin American prospects seems unlikely. But the benefits, says Minaya, now with the San Diego Padres, far outweigh the costs.
"If we educate them and we do the right thing by them, they're going to be good representatives — even if they don't make it," he says. "And the majority of them don't make it. Let's not forget that."
As riders, our war with Boston-area cab drivers is fraught with grievances. For years, we have bolted on fares, acted boorishly,High quality chinamosaic tiles. and vomited in the back seat. (Oh, we have definitely vomited in the back seat.) For their part, cabbies have stretched fares, not known how to get places, and chafed at having to accept credit cards. This last offense has been the biggest flash point lately. Because the credit card readers in taxis charge drivers a 5 or 6 percent processing fee—much higher than the rate paid by retail stores—cabbies feel like they’re getting robbed when we use plastic.Stock up now and start saving on smartcard at Dollar Days. Tales of drivers with “broken” readers—broken until riders profess they have no cash, that is—are common.We offer the largest range of bobblehead online.
So I reacted with great trepidation one recent night when, at the end of a ride from Cambridge to Brookline, a friend pulled out her Visa. To my surprise, the driver took it and, lo, didn’t utter a complaint. He swiped the card through a square white attachment on his smartphone and handed the thing back without so much as a frown. “Do you get a better rate with that?” I asked. Provided by a company called Square, the device, along with its corresponding app, allows smartphones to run credit cards. “Yeah,” the driver said, “3 percent.”
Actually, Square charges just a 2.75 percent processing fee. It also guarantees deposits by the next day—a big deal for drivers who are used to getting cash immediately. The device has become increasingly popular among local cabbies, who typically pay all their fees up front and then keep every dollar in fares they make. In other words, the processing fees directly reduce what goes into their pockets. “We are seeing it pop up in more and more vehicles,” says Corey Pilz, of the Cambridge License Commission, which regulates taxis for the city. Square and other mobile-payment apps, such as Uber and Hailo—both of which let riders hail and pay for cabs with smartphone apps—may not solve every conflict between riders and drivers, but “it’s definitely a bridge,” Pilz says.
Of course, there’s a catch. And it’s a big one. It is illegal for cab drivers in the city of Boston to use Square. Cabbies are required to be members of a radio company—a group that provides communication for drivers and directs them to riders—and those associations have all contracted exclusively with one of two mobile-payment companies, Verifone and Creative Mobile Technologies. Those are the companies that set the high rates and profit from them.
That hasn’t stopped all Boston drivers—who are required by law to accept credit cards—from trying to pay less in fees. “I do know for a fact some of them are [using Square],” says Steve Sullivan, the general manager of Metro Cab, one of the five big radio companies in Boston. Sullivan says he believes that the number of Boston drivers using the app is relatively small, and that most of the ones who do are just keeping it as a backup, in case their normal credit card readers go out.Trade Warehouse have partnered with one of the worlds largest solarlight producers. But since the evidence is purely anecdotal, and it would be difficult for authorities to tell if a driver were using Square, it’s hard to know how prevalent use of the app is in the city.
Constitutional and civil rights at stake
I am dismayed but not deterred, following our setback in federal
court Monday. I respectfully but wholeheartedly disagree with the
judge’s decision, and I plan to continue to seek justice through the
court system until this matter with the Governor is resolved. This is
why:
I was born in Thomaston, a small town in Upson County Georgia. The indignity of segregation and racism was the backdrop of my youth. I swore at that time that I would stand up for my rights no matter the cost. I have not swayed from the self commitment, and virtually all my adult life has been dedicated to service to my fellow man, with a special dedication to education.
I preface this to explain, again, why I am obligated to engage the governor in the court system. It is morally abhorrent to sit idly by and allow the usurping of the one man one vote rights that has been bought and paid with the blood,Universal solarstreetlight are useful for any project. sweat and tears of my generation. It is imperative that public servants preserve and protect the constitution and adhere to all laws, including the precept of a citizens’ right to choose their representative government. With the current assault of Section V of the voting rights act and the perpetual gerrymandering to disenfranchise races of people, I am compelled to employ every means available to me to protect citizens’ rights. The governor is using SACS and the State Board of Education as a hammer and chisel to chip away at the progress we have made.
No one on the DeKalb County Board of Education, myself included, has committed a crime or misappropriated, misused or misspent funds entrusted to us.Trade Warehouse have partnered with one of the worlds largest solarlight producers. Quite the opposite: We have served with honesty and integrity. In fact, this board under the severe stress by the downturn of the economy has worked tirelessly to provide a quality education to our children with a minimum amount of adverse impact on the homeowners of this county. It has not been easy, and there has not always been a consensus. There is no crime in that, rather it is an inherent ingredient in the democratic process.
I don’t feel the governor is personally attacking me. This is not about Eugene Walker. When I step aside through my own actions or through the wisdom of the electorate, I believe I will ultimately be judged on my legacy as an educator, coach, administrator, state senator, state commissioner, pardon and parole board member, in addition to my role now as a school board member.Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic stonemosaic and hose. I believe the greatest gift I can bequeath to the children of this school system at this time is a contemporary lesson on civics, civil liberties and standing up for what is right.
If this unconstitutional act is to stand,New Ground-Based solarlamp Tech Is Accurate Down To Just A Few Inches. then what is next? It will only be a matter of time before another constitutional right will be taken away by another wayward and self-perpetuating politico under the guise of the greater good. Minorities should not feel secure if contrived allegations from anonymous sources with hidden agendas can go to private agencies and to have their civil rights stolen away. This cannot and shall not be allowed to stand.
Leadership calls for tough and sometimes unpopular decisions. Such it is with standing up to the power brokers who seek to systematically erode, divide and conquer the voting strength of partisan and racial minorities. If I lose, so be it. But I cannot and will not go down without a fight on the principles at stake here.
I wasn’t one of the first Apple fans on the iPad bandwagon. I held out for a while, due to the price and not knowing how such a device would fit into my digital routine. However, once I got a first gen iPad a few months after its release, it quickly became my favorite consumer electronics device. The portability, ease of use, great battery life, and fast-growing library of tablet-specific apps eventually made it, and its 2nd and 3rd generation counterparts, the centerpiece of my daily digital routine.
Despite the fact that I have never been dissatisfied with my iPad experience, I’ve always been curious about other tablet options that were available. The alternatives were few at first, but I did eventually pick up the original Barnes & Noble Nook Color, which kept me interested for a bit with all of its hacking possibilities. Then there was the HP Touchpad, the original Kindle Fire, Polaroid PMID701i (a cheap, easy to hack, 7″ ICS slate), Barnes & Noble Nook HD+, Lenovo A2109, and Nexus 7. All came, and before too much time passed, all went.
Recently, my desire to tread the grass on the other side returned. While I have been very happy with my switch to the iPad Mini, there are times when I miss the Retina display and extra screen real estate of my iPad 3. Because of this, I decided to take a look at the Nexus 10. While the B&N HD+ I had tried previously had as good or better screen than the Nexus, I found the software and ecosystem to be severely lacking, even after rooting and tweaking it. Then I picked up a Lenovo A2109 at a great price on sale. It had good build quality, and solid specs for $229, but the screen just wasn’t very good at all.
After these washouts, I figured the Nexus 10 was the natural next step. It has a top shelf screen and has the latest and greatest version of Android. While the 10 easily bests my other recent large screen Android tablets,Looking for the Best solarpanel? it has still left me with many of the mixed feelings that my departed ones did. Being my first Android device from this manufacturer, it has also been a lesson in Good Samsung, Bad Samsung.
It’s hard to argue with the claims about the screen of the Nexus 10. The color reproduction and clarity are spot on (something I actually found lacking in the Nexus 7), and you would be hard pressed to play find the pixels. It could be a little brighter, but this isn’t a glaring issue. While I wouldn’t say that it is necessarily hands-down better than the Retina display of the newer iPads, it is definitely every bit their equal. That aside, this is definitely where you see the good side of Samsung in the Nexus 10. This isn’t a big surprise to me, because where specs are concerned, they are usually at the top of their game.
The Nexus 10 does feel very different to the eye than an iPad due to its 16:9 resolution. This isn’t as noticeable with the Nexus 7, due to its smaller size, but as with all of the other large screen Android tablets that I have used, it is very apparent with the 10. Whether this is a good or bad thing just depends on what you tend to do with your tablet, and what you are used to, I guess. The 16:9 ratio is designed with landscape orientation in mind, which is pretty obvious looking at the front-facing camera location on just about every 10” Android tablet, the Nexus 10 included.
I was born in Thomaston, a small town in Upson County Georgia. The indignity of segregation and racism was the backdrop of my youth. I swore at that time that I would stand up for my rights no matter the cost. I have not swayed from the self commitment, and virtually all my adult life has been dedicated to service to my fellow man, with a special dedication to education.
I preface this to explain, again, why I am obligated to engage the governor in the court system. It is morally abhorrent to sit idly by and allow the usurping of the one man one vote rights that has been bought and paid with the blood,Universal solarstreetlight are useful for any project. sweat and tears of my generation. It is imperative that public servants preserve and protect the constitution and adhere to all laws, including the precept of a citizens’ right to choose their representative government. With the current assault of Section V of the voting rights act and the perpetual gerrymandering to disenfranchise races of people, I am compelled to employ every means available to me to protect citizens’ rights. The governor is using SACS and the State Board of Education as a hammer and chisel to chip away at the progress we have made.
No one on the DeKalb County Board of Education, myself included, has committed a crime or misappropriated, misused or misspent funds entrusted to us.Trade Warehouse have partnered with one of the worlds largest solarlight producers. Quite the opposite: We have served with honesty and integrity. In fact, this board under the severe stress by the downturn of the economy has worked tirelessly to provide a quality education to our children with a minimum amount of adverse impact on the homeowners of this county. It has not been easy, and there has not always been a consensus. There is no crime in that, rather it is an inherent ingredient in the democratic process.
I don’t feel the governor is personally attacking me. This is not about Eugene Walker. When I step aside through my own actions or through the wisdom of the electorate, I believe I will ultimately be judged on my legacy as an educator, coach, administrator, state senator, state commissioner, pardon and parole board member, in addition to my role now as a school board member.Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic stonemosaic and hose. I believe the greatest gift I can bequeath to the children of this school system at this time is a contemporary lesson on civics, civil liberties and standing up for what is right.
If this unconstitutional act is to stand,New Ground-Based solarlamp Tech Is Accurate Down To Just A Few Inches. then what is next? It will only be a matter of time before another constitutional right will be taken away by another wayward and self-perpetuating politico under the guise of the greater good. Minorities should not feel secure if contrived allegations from anonymous sources with hidden agendas can go to private agencies and to have their civil rights stolen away. This cannot and shall not be allowed to stand.
Leadership calls for tough and sometimes unpopular decisions. Such it is with standing up to the power brokers who seek to systematically erode, divide and conquer the voting strength of partisan and racial minorities. If I lose, so be it. But I cannot and will not go down without a fight on the principles at stake here.
I wasn’t one of the first Apple fans on the iPad bandwagon. I held out for a while, due to the price and not knowing how such a device would fit into my digital routine. However, once I got a first gen iPad a few months after its release, it quickly became my favorite consumer electronics device. The portability, ease of use, great battery life, and fast-growing library of tablet-specific apps eventually made it, and its 2nd and 3rd generation counterparts, the centerpiece of my daily digital routine.
Despite the fact that I have never been dissatisfied with my iPad experience, I’ve always been curious about other tablet options that were available. The alternatives were few at first, but I did eventually pick up the original Barnes & Noble Nook Color, which kept me interested for a bit with all of its hacking possibilities. Then there was the HP Touchpad, the original Kindle Fire, Polaroid PMID701i (a cheap, easy to hack, 7″ ICS slate), Barnes & Noble Nook HD+, Lenovo A2109, and Nexus 7. All came, and before too much time passed, all went.
Recently, my desire to tread the grass on the other side returned. While I have been very happy with my switch to the iPad Mini, there are times when I miss the Retina display and extra screen real estate of my iPad 3. Because of this, I decided to take a look at the Nexus 10. While the B&N HD+ I had tried previously had as good or better screen than the Nexus, I found the software and ecosystem to be severely lacking, even after rooting and tweaking it. Then I picked up a Lenovo A2109 at a great price on sale. It had good build quality, and solid specs for $229, but the screen just wasn’t very good at all.
After these washouts, I figured the Nexus 10 was the natural next step. It has a top shelf screen and has the latest and greatest version of Android. While the 10 easily bests my other recent large screen Android tablets,Looking for the Best solarpanel? it has still left me with many of the mixed feelings that my departed ones did. Being my first Android device from this manufacturer, it has also been a lesson in Good Samsung, Bad Samsung.
It’s hard to argue with the claims about the screen of the Nexus 10. The color reproduction and clarity are spot on (something I actually found lacking in the Nexus 7), and you would be hard pressed to play find the pixels. It could be a little brighter, but this isn’t a glaring issue. While I wouldn’t say that it is necessarily hands-down better than the Retina display of the newer iPads, it is definitely every bit their equal. That aside, this is definitely where you see the good side of Samsung in the Nexus 10. This isn’t a big surprise to me, because where specs are concerned, they are usually at the top of their game.
The Nexus 10 does feel very different to the eye than an iPad due to its 16:9 resolution. This isn’t as noticeable with the Nexus 7, due to its smaller size, but as with all of the other large screen Android tablets that I have used, it is very apparent with the 10. Whether this is a good or bad thing just depends on what you tend to do with your tablet, and what you are used to, I guess. The 16:9 ratio is designed with landscape orientation in mind, which is pretty obvious looking at the front-facing camera location on just about every 10” Android tablet, the Nexus 10 included.
2013年1月21日 星期一
Keeping the Internet free
Internet freedom is not something to be taken lightly, as anyone who
has tried to gain access to forbidden sites in China will tell you. The
countries that would like to censor Internet content, including Russia,
China, Iran and others, were eager to see their authority to do so
etched into a United Nations treaty debated at a conference last month
in Dubai. The United States and other nations committed to a free and
open Internet refused to sign the treaty. It was a largely symbolic
protest but the right thing to do.
The World Conference on International Telecommunications brought together 193 nations to consider revisions to principles last modified in the pre-Internet days of 1988. The principles govern the largely technical work of a specialized U.N. agency,Find Complete Details about howo tractor Truck. the International Telecommunications Union. Much of the conference debate turned on whether the principles should be expanded to give national governments and the agency more voice in regulating the Internet.
Those governments that hunger for more control are not paragons of freedom. China, which already maintains the world's most pervasive Internet censorship machine, tightened its controls at year's end, requiring users of social media to disclose their identities. Russia has been moving toward selective eavesdropping to tamp down dissent. The treaty debated in Dubai may not change anything they are already doing but could provide a veneer of political cover.
The United States objected to a resolution appended to the treaty saying that "all governments should have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance." Translation: Let national governments get their hands on it. The United States has maintained that Internet governance should rest, as it does now, with a loose group of organizations, including the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages domain names and addresses under contract with the U.S. Commerce Department. There are suspicions aplenty in the rest of the world that this is the equivalent of U.S. control — suspicions that should not be ignored.We can supply howo truck products as below. While the Internet cannot fall into the hands of those who would censor and restrict it, the United States should put more effort into remaking the current model so that it can serve what has become a global infrastructure.
Ambassador Terry Kramer, who headed the U.S. delegation in Dubai, was clear that a power grab by the repressive countries was a non-starter. "No single organization or government can or should attempt to control the Internet or dictate its future development," Mr. Kramer insisted.
The conference did serve to highlight broad, opposing camps over Internet freedom.We have many different types of crys talbeads wholesale. After the United States pulled out, 89 nations signed the agreement, including Russia, China, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. The blank screen of the Internet censor is not likely to disappear soon. A long and fateful battle looms for digital freedom.
The Niles Public Library has begun a $5.5 million renovation that will add study and meeting space, use technology to check in and keep track of books and improve energy efficiency.
The last renovations were 13 years ago, and trustees have been putting money aside each year since, meaning no referendum measure to raise the funds was needed, said Sue Wilsey, head of marketing and public relations. The work is expected to be completed near the end of the year.
"We're definitely going to have additional study room space and meeting spaces, which is what the public needs," Wilsey said. "We're going to have a computer training lab and a brand new board room. We're going to renovate to make the entry more energy efficient," providing a warm place for those waiting for the Niles Free Bus.
Also new will be a tracking wand to help locate mis-shelved books and those that are checked out. Automatic check-in terminals will be installed.
"It's really going to streamline things," Wilsey said. "There will still be people available in the lobby, but they're going to be transformed into more of a concierge individual."
What now houses fiction in the basement will be transformed into a computer area and a teen center. The first floor common area will have comfortable seats and easy access to popular materials, so people can hang out with a vending cafeteria that will sell coffee and drinks. It will also contain a space for pre-teens where they can play video games, and a toddlers' area called an Early Literacy Space where there will be lots of hands-on and learning activities.
The second floor will contain fiction, audio-visual material, DVD's and audio books. The third floor will contain a gas fireplace with chairs in the turret of the building.
"It's going to look cozy when people drive by," said Wilsey. "It's going to be so filled with bright light that people will want to come and sit and get a magazine or on a computer."
It seems pretty inevitable for a mobile app to go cross-platform, especially since it was created by former Googlers. But Ian Mendiola, co-founder and CEO at Umano-maker SoThree, said he realized that Android should be a priority after a marketing stunt where team members boarded Caltrain (that’s the commuter rail running between San Jose, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco) with fliers promoting the app, and they saw that many of the interested users owned Android phones.
The content is the same in both versions of the app, with about 20 articles selected each day by the Umano team and read by voice actors (so it sounds like a real news broadcast, not a robotic text-to-speech translator). It’s divided into six categories: Entertaining,Find Complete Details about howo tractor Truck. Must Know, Geeky, Entrepreneurial, Inspirational, and Scientific — Mendiola said he was particularly impressed by the popularity of self-help content. The company doesn’t have a relationship with any of the publishers,Want to find howo concrete mixer? he added, but it hasn’t received any complaints, and “if content owners would like their content taken down we’re happy to work with them.”
The Android app includes some platform-specific features, including Google+ integration and rich notifications, allowing users to access playback controls directly within their app notifications. There are, however, some features that haven’t made the transition to Android yet, including the ability to create playlists (so you can create a list at the beginning of your commute, then just let it run as you drive) and download content for offline listening — adding those features to Android is the company’s next goal, Mendiola said.
The team has bigger goals too. Mendiola said he wants to add more personalization to the app, so that it can create an automatic playlist based on your interests and the length of your commute. He also wants to “open up more of a voice actor marketplace,” so actors could visit the site and upload their own recordings, rather than waiting for an assignment from Umano.
The World Conference on International Telecommunications brought together 193 nations to consider revisions to principles last modified in the pre-Internet days of 1988. The principles govern the largely technical work of a specialized U.N. agency,Find Complete Details about howo tractor Truck. the International Telecommunications Union. Much of the conference debate turned on whether the principles should be expanded to give national governments and the agency more voice in regulating the Internet.
Those governments that hunger for more control are not paragons of freedom. China, which already maintains the world's most pervasive Internet censorship machine, tightened its controls at year's end, requiring users of social media to disclose their identities. Russia has been moving toward selective eavesdropping to tamp down dissent. The treaty debated in Dubai may not change anything they are already doing but could provide a veneer of political cover.
The United States objected to a resolution appended to the treaty saying that "all governments should have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance." Translation: Let national governments get their hands on it. The United States has maintained that Internet governance should rest, as it does now, with a loose group of organizations, including the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages domain names and addresses under contract with the U.S. Commerce Department. There are suspicions aplenty in the rest of the world that this is the equivalent of U.S. control — suspicions that should not be ignored.We can supply howo truck products as below. While the Internet cannot fall into the hands of those who would censor and restrict it, the United States should put more effort into remaking the current model so that it can serve what has become a global infrastructure.
Ambassador Terry Kramer, who headed the U.S. delegation in Dubai, was clear that a power grab by the repressive countries was a non-starter. "No single organization or government can or should attempt to control the Internet or dictate its future development," Mr. Kramer insisted.
The conference did serve to highlight broad, opposing camps over Internet freedom.We have many different types of crys talbeads wholesale. After the United States pulled out, 89 nations signed the agreement, including Russia, China, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. The blank screen of the Internet censor is not likely to disappear soon. A long and fateful battle looms for digital freedom.
The Niles Public Library has begun a $5.5 million renovation that will add study and meeting space, use technology to check in and keep track of books and improve energy efficiency.
The last renovations were 13 years ago, and trustees have been putting money aside each year since, meaning no referendum measure to raise the funds was needed, said Sue Wilsey, head of marketing and public relations. The work is expected to be completed near the end of the year.
"We're definitely going to have additional study room space and meeting spaces, which is what the public needs," Wilsey said. "We're going to have a computer training lab and a brand new board room. We're going to renovate to make the entry more energy efficient," providing a warm place for those waiting for the Niles Free Bus.
Also new will be a tracking wand to help locate mis-shelved books and those that are checked out. Automatic check-in terminals will be installed.
"It's really going to streamline things," Wilsey said. "There will still be people available in the lobby, but they're going to be transformed into more of a concierge individual."
What now houses fiction in the basement will be transformed into a computer area and a teen center. The first floor common area will have comfortable seats and easy access to popular materials, so people can hang out with a vending cafeteria that will sell coffee and drinks. It will also contain a space for pre-teens where they can play video games, and a toddlers' area called an Early Literacy Space where there will be lots of hands-on and learning activities.
The second floor will contain fiction, audio-visual material, DVD's and audio books. The third floor will contain a gas fireplace with chairs in the turret of the building.
"It's going to look cozy when people drive by," said Wilsey. "It's going to be so filled with bright light that people will want to come and sit and get a magazine or on a computer."
It seems pretty inevitable for a mobile app to go cross-platform, especially since it was created by former Googlers. But Ian Mendiola, co-founder and CEO at Umano-maker SoThree, said he realized that Android should be a priority after a marketing stunt where team members boarded Caltrain (that’s the commuter rail running between San Jose, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco) with fliers promoting the app, and they saw that many of the interested users owned Android phones.
The content is the same in both versions of the app, with about 20 articles selected each day by the Umano team and read by voice actors (so it sounds like a real news broadcast, not a robotic text-to-speech translator). It’s divided into six categories: Entertaining,Find Complete Details about howo tractor Truck. Must Know, Geeky, Entrepreneurial, Inspirational, and Scientific — Mendiola said he was particularly impressed by the popularity of self-help content. The company doesn’t have a relationship with any of the publishers,Want to find howo concrete mixer? he added, but it hasn’t received any complaints, and “if content owners would like their content taken down we’re happy to work with them.”
The Android app includes some platform-specific features, including Google+ integration and rich notifications, allowing users to access playback controls directly within their app notifications. There are, however, some features that haven’t made the transition to Android yet, including the ability to create playlists (so you can create a list at the beginning of your commute, then just let it run as you drive) and download content for offline listening — adding those features to Android is the company’s next goal, Mendiola said.
The team has bigger goals too. Mendiola said he wants to add more personalization to the app, so that it can create an automatic playlist based on your interests and the length of your commute. He also wants to “open up more of a voice actor marketplace,” so actors could visit the site and upload their own recordings, rather than waiting for an assignment from Umano.
Chopp Tour of East Asia Builds Connections
President Rebecca Chopp traveled to Hong Kong,We open source indoor tracking
system that was developed with the goal of providing at least
room-level accuracy. Shanghai, Seoul, and Tokyo this winter break to
meet with students, parents, and alumni. According to Chopp, the number
of international students from Asian countries at Swarthmore has been
increasing over the past decade, making Asia increasingly important for
the College’s outreach efforts. In each city, Chopp held an event to
discuss Swarthmore’s strategic plans for the future.
East Asia’s representation in the student body has been growing with each incoming class. As of 2011, out of 134 international students from 49 countries, 31 were from South Korea, 19 from China, and seven each from Hong Kong and India, which is a dramatic jump from one, five, four, and one students respectively in 2000. By contrast, non-Asian countries tend to have only one or two students at Swarthmore.
Chopp thinks that the growing population of international students from Asian countries at Swarthmore will have an effect on the ways in which the College is run. “The students mold the curriculum,” she said. She stated that one of her goals is to extend need-blind admissions to international students.
Chopp believes that a large presence of international students on campus is beneficial for the whole student body. “It’s one thing to read a book about Japan, and a whole other thing to be in a class with someone from Japan,” she said. “For domestic students, to have the experience of those linkages is extremely important.”
Tatsuya Ueda ’16, a student from Japan, agreed, saying he thinks it is important for students “to share cultural views and values.The stone mosaic series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics and listellos.” He said he hopes Chopp’s visit will promote connections.
Chopp explained that, in addition to Asia, she often visits areas with lots of alumni such as Europe. “What these trips are about is relationship-building,” she said.
When asked why Swarthmore and other Liberal Arts colleges are becoming more popular in Asia, Chopp said that “American education has a reputation for driving innovation … our top schools are phenomenal.”
Several Asian universities, such as the University of Hong Kong, United International College in Guangzhou, and the University of Tokyo, are starting to implement elements of Liberal Arts schools. Yale has even started a Liberal Arts campus in Singapore.
Ueda believes it is significant that the concept of the Liberal Arts is becoming more popular in Asia. “I think Swarthmore’s type of education is really necessary in Japan,” he said. “Japanese universities are more for socializing and having fun, whereas going to an American school is more purposeful.”
Parents also play a big part in the choice to go to a Liberal Arts college. “A lot of our international parents travel to the U.S. anyway,” said Chopp, which helps introduce them to schools like Swarthmore.
“They’ve never seen education like this,” she said. She joked that some parents don’t want to leave after dropping their kids off during orientation.
High-schoolers in Asia find out about Swarthmore through three mechanisms: the web, alumni, and the admissions office,A Dessicant dry cabinet is an enclosure with a supply of desiccant which maintains an internal. said Chopp. “The web is a great advantage. We get students who reach out first,” she said.
This was the President’s first time going to China on behalf of Swarthmore, but she has visited Asia many times before. She is also involved with the Robert H N Ho Foundation, a charity organization based in Hong Kong that promotes Asian art.
The release of “12 Zodiacs” is similar to DRM-free download experiments by Radiohead and Louis CK, but with a difference: Wang is much more influential. He may not be a celebrity in the West,Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. but to get an idea of the Taiwanese-American Wang’s reach, take a look at his Sina Weibo account, the third most popular one on the Chinese microblogging platform, with more than 28.9 million fans. Only three people–Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry–have more followers on Twitter.
Wang’s team rebuilt his official Web site so they can sell music directly from it. This year, Wang plans to team up with other musicians to create a new site that will allow them to “share their creative works in an economically viable way.”
“The Asian music industry is sustainable in many ways, and I am tremendously fortunate to continue to benefit from that and be able to do what I love for a living. But I think, like any industry, we need to continue to look forward and evolve, and a significant aspect of that is finding new, mutually beneficial ways for artists to share content with fans. What we’ve done with the release of ’12 Zodiacs’ is just one experiment in that vein,” Wang said in an email.
It is important to note that piracy has not been as disruptive to the music industry in China as it has been in the West. Harold Li, who directs the digital sales initiative on wangleehom.com, says that album sales have never been a significant source of revenue for Wang, who, like other major artists in Asia, earns most of his revenue from concert ticket sales and brand endorsements. Confronting music piracy is a secondary issue. Instead, the DRM-free online release of “12 Zodiacs” explores what different directions the Asian music industry can take in order to cultivate new talent.
Wang’s success and celebrity has given him the freedom to tackle social issues that are usually missing from Mandopop, which has a reputation for catchy tunes but fluffy lyrics. For example, with past releases Wang has looked at environmental issues and Asian American culture and identity. But younger artists who don’t have the leverage to draw crowds or ink advertising deals often struggle to break into the music industry, let alone find a wide audience for anything truly original.
For example, South Korea and Japan‘s popular music industries are (in)famous for training, grooming and assembling groups with clinical precision.Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. Even in Taiwan, known for being the center of the vast Mandopop industry as well as a host of renowned indie bands, emerging artists often feel enormous pressure to fit into a very specific mold. Last year, Taiwanese-American singer Joanna Wang went on Reddit to repudiate her hit debut album, which she referred to as a “a shitastic record with the cheesiest and cliche 80′s-esque music videos to very lame music that my label [Sony Music Taiwan] coerced me into singing.”
The release of “12 Zodiacs” looks how whether or not it will be possible for an artist to operate independently from record labels by launching and promoting tracks on their own Web platforms–in effect, making each artist the founder of his or her own startup. If the idea takes off, it can mean more diversity in this region’s music industry.
“The Chinese music industry is very innovative, and it’s a personal mission of mine to make sure we do a better job showing that to the world,” said Wang. “I think artists old and new will find, as I have, that the best way of building an audience is to directly engage fans, particularly through digital platforms such as Weibo, WeChat, Youku, or YouTube.”
Though Wang’s company doesn’t release sales figures, Li says “12 Zodiacs” got 2 million views in the first week and a half after it went live on last month. Many of Wang’s fans throughout China don’t use credit cards, so his company made a deal with Alibaba’s Alipay to support online payments.
One goal of Wang’s experiment is to find artists capable of creating content with international appeal and then spread their work. Wang also hopes to expose more listeners to Chinese-language pop music across the world, even those who aren’t native speakers. One of his goals to break into the U.S., where there are significant barriers for Asian artists in the U.S. music industry despite the growing global appetite for Asian pop music around the world.
East Asia’s representation in the student body has been growing with each incoming class. As of 2011, out of 134 international students from 49 countries, 31 were from South Korea, 19 from China, and seven each from Hong Kong and India, which is a dramatic jump from one, five, four, and one students respectively in 2000. By contrast, non-Asian countries tend to have only one or two students at Swarthmore.
Chopp thinks that the growing population of international students from Asian countries at Swarthmore will have an effect on the ways in which the College is run. “The students mold the curriculum,” she said. She stated that one of her goals is to extend need-blind admissions to international students.
Chopp believes that a large presence of international students on campus is beneficial for the whole student body. “It’s one thing to read a book about Japan, and a whole other thing to be in a class with someone from Japan,” she said. “For domestic students, to have the experience of those linkages is extremely important.”
Tatsuya Ueda ’16, a student from Japan, agreed, saying he thinks it is important for students “to share cultural views and values.The stone mosaic series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics and listellos.” He said he hopes Chopp’s visit will promote connections.
Chopp explained that, in addition to Asia, she often visits areas with lots of alumni such as Europe. “What these trips are about is relationship-building,” she said.
When asked why Swarthmore and other Liberal Arts colleges are becoming more popular in Asia, Chopp said that “American education has a reputation for driving innovation … our top schools are phenomenal.”
Several Asian universities, such as the University of Hong Kong, United International College in Guangzhou, and the University of Tokyo, are starting to implement elements of Liberal Arts schools. Yale has even started a Liberal Arts campus in Singapore.
Ueda believes it is significant that the concept of the Liberal Arts is becoming more popular in Asia. “I think Swarthmore’s type of education is really necessary in Japan,” he said. “Japanese universities are more for socializing and having fun, whereas going to an American school is more purposeful.”
Parents also play a big part in the choice to go to a Liberal Arts college. “A lot of our international parents travel to the U.S. anyway,” said Chopp, which helps introduce them to schools like Swarthmore.
“They’ve never seen education like this,” she said. She joked that some parents don’t want to leave after dropping their kids off during orientation.
High-schoolers in Asia find out about Swarthmore through three mechanisms: the web, alumni, and the admissions office,A Dessicant dry cabinet is an enclosure with a supply of desiccant which maintains an internal. said Chopp. “The web is a great advantage. We get students who reach out first,” she said.
This was the President’s first time going to China on behalf of Swarthmore, but she has visited Asia many times before. She is also involved with the Robert H N Ho Foundation, a charity organization based in Hong Kong that promotes Asian art.
The release of “12 Zodiacs” is similar to DRM-free download experiments by Radiohead and Louis CK, but with a difference: Wang is much more influential. He may not be a celebrity in the West,Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. but to get an idea of the Taiwanese-American Wang’s reach, take a look at his Sina Weibo account, the third most popular one on the Chinese microblogging platform, with more than 28.9 million fans. Only three people–Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry–have more followers on Twitter.
Wang’s team rebuilt his official Web site so they can sell music directly from it. This year, Wang plans to team up with other musicians to create a new site that will allow them to “share their creative works in an economically viable way.”
“The Asian music industry is sustainable in many ways, and I am tremendously fortunate to continue to benefit from that and be able to do what I love for a living. But I think, like any industry, we need to continue to look forward and evolve, and a significant aspect of that is finding new, mutually beneficial ways for artists to share content with fans. What we’ve done with the release of ’12 Zodiacs’ is just one experiment in that vein,” Wang said in an email.
It is important to note that piracy has not been as disruptive to the music industry in China as it has been in the West. Harold Li, who directs the digital sales initiative on wangleehom.com, says that album sales have never been a significant source of revenue for Wang, who, like other major artists in Asia, earns most of his revenue from concert ticket sales and brand endorsements. Confronting music piracy is a secondary issue. Instead, the DRM-free online release of “12 Zodiacs” explores what different directions the Asian music industry can take in order to cultivate new talent.
Wang’s success and celebrity has given him the freedom to tackle social issues that are usually missing from Mandopop, which has a reputation for catchy tunes but fluffy lyrics. For example, with past releases Wang has looked at environmental issues and Asian American culture and identity. But younger artists who don’t have the leverage to draw crowds or ink advertising deals often struggle to break into the music industry, let alone find a wide audience for anything truly original.
For example, South Korea and Japan‘s popular music industries are (in)famous for training, grooming and assembling groups with clinical precision.Our team of consultants are skilled in project management and delivery of large scale rtls projects. Even in Taiwan, known for being the center of the vast Mandopop industry as well as a host of renowned indie bands, emerging artists often feel enormous pressure to fit into a very specific mold. Last year, Taiwanese-American singer Joanna Wang went on Reddit to repudiate her hit debut album, which she referred to as a “a shitastic record with the cheesiest and cliche 80′s-esque music videos to very lame music that my label [Sony Music Taiwan] coerced me into singing.”
The release of “12 Zodiacs” looks how whether or not it will be possible for an artist to operate independently from record labels by launching and promoting tracks on their own Web platforms–in effect, making each artist the founder of his or her own startup. If the idea takes off, it can mean more diversity in this region’s music industry.
“The Chinese music industry is very innovative, and it’s a personal mission of mine to make sure we do a better job showing that to the world,” said Wang. “I think artists old and new will find, as I have, that the best way of building an audience is to directly engage fans, particularly through digital platforms such as Weibo, WeChat, Youku, or YouTube.”
Though Wang’s company doesn’t release sales figures, Li says “12 Zodiacs” got 2 million views in the first week and a half after it went live on last month. Many of Wang’s fans throughout China don’t use credit cards, so his company made a deal with Alibaba’s Alipay to support online payments.
One goal of Wang’s experiment is to find artists capable of creating content with international appeal and then spread their work. Wang also hopes to expose more listeners to Chinese-language pop music across the world, even those who aren’t native speakers. One of his goals to break into the U.S., where there are significant barriers for Asian artists in the U.S. music industry despite the growing global appetite for Asian pop music around the world.
2013年1月5日 星期六
Property challenge is a labour of love
Here she would buy a run down property, live in it for a couple of
years, do it up and then sell it and move on to the next one.
Over the years this has been a very lucrative "hobby" and in 2007 Julie decided the time had come to turn her hobby into a career and looked at the concept of building up a property portfolio.
As this was the height of the property boom, she was able to sell her last home in London at an excellent profit, allowing her to consider where to develop her new "career".
Her primary aim was to move out of London and, having studied numerous property magazines and programmes such as Location, Location, Location which were really touting Thanet as an up-and-coming area and Ramsgate as potentially the next Brighton, Julie decided to do a bit of research.The oreck XL professional air purifier,
She enjoyed day trips to the town and eventually felt Ramsgate was the place for her.
There were miles of sandy beaches that were perfect for walking a dog, the high speed rail was on the way and would make regular trips to London quite bearable and, at the time, Manston was offering cheap flights to Edinburgh so she could go home to Scotland whenever she liked.
With the proceeds from the London house and the support of her mortgage lender, Julie was able to buy a five-storey 1855 Victorian Grade II-listed terrace house, designed in the Georgian style, as well as a balconied flat in Granville House, designed by Edward Welby Pugin, son of Augustus Pugin.
The house was in need of more than a little TLC – it had to be completely gutted and reborn as a very desirable residence. Even the apartment took three months to renovate but was subsequently let out to excellent tenants who absolutely love it.
Rather than bring in a firm of builders, Julie decided to project manage the renovations herself with the help of her then boyfriend.
Julie said: "The initial reconstruction works took about two-and-a-half years and we spent our time living with rubble and dust. I spent a further two years creating the interior design and you can see the stunning results.
"I always enjoy creating distinct individual rooms, with their own personality and never use a professional designer as I like to ensure that my home is 'me'. Soon after I first moved down to Ramsgate I bought a Tibetan terrier puppy – McDuff – so we could enjoy walks on the beach together!"
As we all know, the best laid plans do not always go quite according to plan.
No sooner had Julie purchased the two properties than the financial disasters of 2008 loomed large, forcing Julie to rethink her property portfolio strategy.
Under the circumstances, she decided not to increase the number of properties she owned at least for the time being and elected to work as a freelance production consultant for TV commercials.
This involved her primarily working from home but going to London about two days a week.
As she said: "It's great. I enjoy a London salary but live in Ramsgate and don't even have to commute every day!"
While she might buy more properties in the future, Julie is happy at the moment.
She added: "This is the longest I have lived in any house and I have really made it a home for me and McDuff. I look on the flat is my retirement fund so,The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. even if I don't expand my property portfolio further, the effort has all been worthwhile."
Bhardwaj and his three friends were brutally beaten up by the molesters after they rescued a 30-year-old woman from being raped by them late on December 31. Bhardwaj, a regional manager with a pharmaceutical firm, succumbed to his injuries on New Year's Day. His friends Om Prakash Pandey, Suraj Singh and Mritunjay Kumar are under medical supervision. Om Prakash Pandey, one of the injured persons, said, "By the time police arrived, the boys had fled the site."
C P Singh, speaker of Jharkhand assembly and legislator from the Ranchi assembly constituency, on Friday criticized the police. "When I personally know each and every area of the city, how can the police be so ignorant," Singh asked at a condolence meeting attended by more than 300 locals.
Fulan Ram, officer in-charge of the Bariyatu police station, accepted that the police was late to react to the complaint.Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. "We were late in reaching the spot, but it is not true that we took two hours to get there. Our officers arrived at the spot in 35 minutes," claimed Ram, who is also the investigating officer in the case.We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs.
Ram added that instead of taking a straight and well-known route to the locality, the patrolling party chose a lesser-known route, which was incidentally blocked.High quality stone mosaic tiles. The team made another error of judgment when it tried to break through the blockade to get to the scene of crime. "I was stuck in a traffic jam and that is the reason I got delayed in getting to the site," said the officer in-charge of Bariyatu police station.
Two more persons were arrested in this connection on Friday. A total of 100 boys have been made unnamed accused in the case. Ranchi SP (city) Vipul Shukla said at times police are fast and at times a little slow in reaching a spot. "Now the police are totally focused on investigation," said Shukla.
Meanwhile, Ranchiites paid rich tributes to the fallen hero at the condolence meeting. Professor Vandana Kumari, who offered floral tributes to Bhardwaj, said: "Violence against women will stop only when we stand up against the rouges in the society. Bhardwaj is a hero and his memories will continue to be an inspiration for others to stand up against such crimes."
Arvind Kumar Singh, a young neighbour of the deceased, said: "Bhaiyya was always a problem-solver for us. Be it a personal issue or something related to studies, you could always approach him for help." Others compared Bhardwaj with Lord Krishna, who had saved Draupdi from Dushasana.
Over the years this has been a very lucrative "hobby" and in 2007 Julie decided the time had come to turn her hobby into a career and looked at the concept of building up a property portfolio.
As this was the height of the property boom, she was able to sell her last home in London at an excellent profit, allowing her to consider where to develop her new "career".
Her primary aim was to move out of London and, having studied numerous property magazines and programmes such as Location, Location, Location which were really touting Thanet as an up-and-coming area and Ramsgate as potentially the next Brighton, Julie decided to do a bit of research.The oreck XL professional air purifier,
She enjoyed day trips to the town and eventually felt Ramsgate was the place for her.
There were miles of sandy beaches that were perfect for walking a dog, the high speed rail was on the way and would make regular trips to London quite bearable and, at the time, Manston was offering cheap flights to Edinburgh so she could go home to Scotland whenever she liked.
With the proceeds from the London house and the support of her mortgage lender, Julie was able to buy a five-storey 1855 Victorian Grade II-listed terrace house, designed in the Georgian style, as well as a balconied flat in Granville House, designed by Edward Welby Pugin, son of Augustus Pugin.
The house was in need of more than a little TLC – it had to be completely gutted and reborn as a very desirable residence. Even the apartment took three months to renovate but was subsequently let out to excellent tenants who absolutely love it.
Rather than bring in a firm of builders, Julie decided to project manage the renovations herself with the help of her then boyfriend.
Julie said: "The initial reconstruction works took about two-and-a-half years and we spent our time living with rubble and dust. I spent a further two years creating the interior design and you can see the stunning results.
"I always enjoy creating distinct individual rooms, with their own personality and never use a professional designer as I like to ensure that my home is 'me'. Soon after I first moved down to Ramsgate I bought a Tibetan terrier puppy – McDuff – so we could enjoy walks on the beach together!"
As we all know, the best laid plans do not always go quite according to plan.
No sooner had Julie purchased the two properties than the financial disasters of 2008 loomed large, forcing Julie to rethink her property portfolio strategy.
Under the circumstances, she decided not to increase the number of properties she owned at least for the time being and elected to work as a freelance production consultant for TV commercials.
This involved her primarily working from home but going to London about two days a week.
As she said: "It's great. I enjoy a London salary but live in Ramsgate and don't even have to commute every day!"
While she might buy more properties in the future, Julie is happy at the moment.
She added: "This is the longest I have lived in any house and I have really made it a home for me and McDuff. I look on the flat is my retirement fund so,The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. even if I don't expand my property portfolio further, the effort has all been worthwhile."
Bhardwaj and his three friends were brutally beaten up by the molesters after they rescued a 30-year-old woman from being raped by them late on December 31. Bhardwaj, a regional manager with a pharmaceutical firm, succumbed to his injuries on New Year's Day. His friends Om Prakash Pandey, Suraj Singh and Mritunjay Kumar are under medical supervision. Om Prakash Pandey, one of the injured persons, said, "By the time police arrived, the boys had fled the site."
C P Singh, speaker of Jharkhand assembly and legislator from the Ranchi assembly constituency, on Friday criticized the police. "When I personally know each and every area of the city, how can the police be so ignorant," Singh asked at a condolence meeting attended by more than 300 locals.
Fulan Ram, officer in-charge of the Bariyatu police station, accepted that the police was late to react to the complaint.Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. "We were late in reaching the spot, but it is not true that we took two hours to get there. Our officers arrived at the spot in 35 minutes," claimed Ram, who is also the investigating officer in the case.We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs.
Ram added that instead of taking a straight and well-known route to the locality, the patrolling party chose a lesser-known route, which was incidentally blocked.High quality stone mosaic tiles. The team made another error of judgment when it tried to break through the blockade to get to the scene of crime. "I was stuck in a traffic jam and that is the reason I got delayed in getting to the site," said the officer in-charge of Bariyatu police station.
Two more persons were arrested in this connection on Friday. A total of 100 boys have been made unnamed accused in the case. Ranchi SP (city) Vipul Shukla said at times police are fast and at times a little slow in reaching a spot. "Now the police are totally focused on investigation," said Shukla.
Meanwhile, Ranchiites paid rich tributes to the fallen hero at the condolence meeting. Professor Vandana Kumari, who offered floral tributes to Bhardwaj, said: "Violence against women will stop only when we stand up against the rouges in the society. Bhardwaj is a hero and his memories will continue to be an inspiration for others to stand up against such crimes."
Arvind Kumar Singh, a young neighbour of the deceased, said: "Bhaiyya was always a problem-solver for us. Be it a personal issue or something related to studies, you could always approach him for help." Others compared Bhardwaj with Lord Krishna, who had saved Draupdi from Dushasana.
2012年12月28日 星期五
Four Thais jailed over 54 Myanmar migrant deaths
Four people smugglers were
sentenced to up to 10 years in prison by a Thai court after 54 illegal workers
from Myanmar suffocated to death inside a seafood container, an official said on
Friday.
The 2008 incident was the deadliest in a wave of tragedies afflicting migrants making perilous journeys from impoverished Myanmar in search of work in neighbouring Thailand, where they often end up exploited and abused.
The victims were among 121 people crammed into the six metres by 2.2 metres container with a broken ventilation system for the journey to the resort island of Phuket to work as day labourers. Four Thais were convicted on Thursday of gross negligence resulting in death and of breaking immigration laws, an official from a court in the country’s southern Ranong province told the reporter.
The owner of the container truck was sentenced to 10 years in prison, a second defendant received nine years and a third — who owned a jetty in southern Thailand where the migrants arrived by boat — was jailed for six years.Find detailed product information for startup stone mosaic and other products.
A woman defendant had her sentence halved to three years after confessing, the official said.
“Three of them were granted bail of between $13,000 and $6,500 while they file appeals,” the official said, adding that one defendant had been held in custody after failing to meet bail terms.
The truck driver, who fled the scene after discovering the tragedy,The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry, was jailed for six years in August 2008 having admitted to his role in the crime, the official added.
Survivors have recounted desperately trying to raise the alarm as they fought for breath in the storage box.
“No matter how many times we hit the container the driver did not pay any attention,” one female migrant who was on board told Thai television.
More than two million migrant workers are registered to work in Thailand, most of them from Myanmar, labour ministry figures show, but as many as one million undocumented workers are believed to be in the kingdom.
Thailand this week extended a deadline by three months for unregistered migrants to gain a work permit or face deportation.
Huge numbers of people from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar work illegally in low-paid jobs in construction, seafood processing and clothing factories, where a lack of legal status leaves them vulnerable to exploitation.
Short animated films are the testing site for new ideas—after all, Pixar started as a commercial and short film company before moving into features. But what do we mean when we talk about innovation in animation? Starting with the release of Pixar's Toy Story in 1995, animation has chased realism, perhaps achieved with the nearly photograph quality look of the Scottish landscapes in Pixar's latest feature, Brave. At some point animation solely in the pursuit of the life-like prompts the question: Why not just shoot a live-action film?
Lemieux's innovation was to take an old,The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry, rare device to make a film with an old, increasingly rare aim: not towards realism, but rather a sense of the human touch,Quickparts builds injection molds using aluminum or steel to meet your program. painterly animation, and abstraction. Having toured with Disney and Pixar short films as part of the 14th annual Show of Shows animated showcase, Here and the Great Elsewhere is both radical and anachronistic, and well worth seeking out.
Lemieux, a Canadian who used to write children's books, is the guardian of the pinscreen, the only filmmaker in the world with access to a working frame (though there is one in France that needs thorough restoration). When she began her first animated film Stormy Nights, based on her eponymous children's book, she met Jacques Drouin. It was well timed. Drouin had been working on the pinscreen for three decades and was on the verge of retiring. The National Film Board of Canada, which supervises the pinscreen, was looking for its next master. "I instantly fell in love with it, the first time I was allowed to touch it, to guide it," she says. "First of all, Jacques taught me, you are the protector of the instrument before you are an artist working on it."
Unlike with most animation, meticulous planning would be detrimental to working with the pinscreen,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale turquoise beads from china, Lemieux says: "It's not a technique. It's much more parallel to a music instrument. It has its own mechanics and you have to find out the way to work with it, and it doesn't always do what you want it to do." So, Lemieux sketched her ideas and created four acts around themes, but primarily, she created as she went along: "It's direct animation, inventing on the spot."
Here and the Great Elsewhere has little in the way of plot. Rather it's a big-ideas meditation, similar to this year's brilliant animated feature Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day. In Here and the Great Elsewhere, a man who lives inside of the pinscreen emerges to discover a surrounding world of floating jellyfish creatures, shooting stars, scuttling spiders. Other scenes center on mating atoms, creation, and collision. Here and the Great Elsewhere is tangled and gorgeous, like moss or wildflowers; it has a certain natural logic, but it seems to sprout unintentionally to the viewer's eye. It's about the universe in the way of Terrence Malick's Tree of Life: disparate images, floating into one another. It's about discovery, not understanding.
There are very high expectations for Danny Boyle's next movie following his Olympian feats in Stratford over the summer. No, the Queen won't be falling out of a plane this time round. Boyle is instead offering us an embroiled thriller involving art heists and hypnotherapy, and starring James McAvoy and Rosario Dawson.
Fearless Danish maverick Lars Von Trier announced that his new film will be about “the erotic life of a woman from the age of zero to the age of 50.” At the time he hatched the project, he was still in disgrace because of his ill-judged remarks about Adolf Hitler at a press conference. He didn't hide the fact that he wanted the film to depict sex in a very graphic manner. Even so, top European and American actors queued up to work on Nymphomaniac, among them Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe, Shia LaBeouf and Christian Slater. This is likely to be the most talked about movie in Cannes... if the festival organisers allow Von Trier back.
There has already been one excellent recent film about skullduggery on Wall St, Arbitrage, in which Richard Gere gave his best performance in years as a Bernie Madoff-like financier with Mr Goodbar-like charm. Martin Scorsese, more accustomed to making movies about mobsters, is bound to relish portraying white-collar crime and corporate corruption. Leonardo DiCaprio, who excels in Quentin Tarantino's forthcoming Django Unchained, stars as the hard-driving, hard-partying broker Jordan Belfort.
An intriguing double bill, reflecting female heroines in contrasting predicaments. Purcell's tale of the Trojan prince who falls in love with the Carthaginian queen climaxes in Dido's great lament “When I am laid in earth”. Poulenc's embattled telephone monologue will be sung by Lesley Garrett, making her return to the operatic stage.
The 2008 incident was the deadliest in a wave of tragedies afflicting migrants making perilous journeys from impoverished Myanmar in search of work in neighbouring Thailand, where they often end up exploited and abused.
The victims were among 121 people crammed into the six metres by 2.2 metres container with a broken ventilation system for the journey to the resort island of Phuket to work as day labourers. Four Thais were convicted on Thursday of gross negligence resulting in death and of breaking immigration laws, an official from a court in the country’s southern Ranong province told the reporter.
The owner of the container truck was sentenced to 10 years in prison, a second defendant received nine years and a third — who owned a jetty in southern Thailand where the migrants arrived by boat — was jailed for six years.Find detailed product information for startup stone mosaic and other products.
A woman defendant had her sentence halved to three years after confessing, the official said.
“Three of them were granted bail of between $13,000 and $6,500 while they file appeals,” the official said, adding that one defendant had been held in custody after failing to meet bail terms.
The truck driver, who fled the scene after discovering the tragedy,The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry, was jailed for six years in August 2008 having admitted to his role in the crime, the official added.
Survivors have recounted desperately trying to raise the alarm as they fought for breath in the storage box.
“No matter how many times we hit the container the driver did not pay any attention,” one female migrant who was on board told Thai television.
More than two million migrant workers are registered to work in Thailand, most of them from Myanmar, labour ministry figures show, but as many as one million undocumented workers are believed to be in the kingdom.
Thailand this week extended a deadline by three months for unregistered migrants to gain a work permit or face deportation.
Huge numbers of people from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar work illegally in low-paid jobs in construction, seafood processing and clothing factories, where a lack of legal status leaves them vulnerable to exploitation.
Short animated films are the testing site for new ideas—after all, Pixar started as a commercial and short film company before moving into features. But what do we mean when we talk about innovation in animation? Starting with the release of Pixar's Toy Story in 1995, animation has chased realism, perhaps achieved with the nearly photograph quality look of the Scottish landscapes in Pixar's latest feature, Brave. At some point animation solely in the pursuit of the life-like prompts the question: Why not just shoot a live-action film?
Lemieux's innovation was to take an old,The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry, rare device to make a film with an old, increasingly rare aim: not towards realism, but rather a sense of the human touch,Quickparts builds injection molds using aluminum or steel to meet your program. painterly animation, and abstraction. Having toured with Disney and Pixar short films as part of the 14th annual Show of Shows animated showcase, Here and the Great Elsewhere is both radical and anachronistic, and well worth seeking out.
Lemieux, a Canadian who used to write children's books, is the guardian of the pinscreen, the only filmmaker in the world with access to a working frame (though there is one in France that needs thorough restoration). When she began her first animated film Stormy Nights, based on her eponymous children's book, she met Jacques Drouin. It was well timed. Drouin had been working on the pinscreen for three decades and was on the verge of retiring. The National Film Board of Canada, which supervises the pinscreen, was looking for its next master. "I instantly fell in love with it, the first time I was allowed to touch it, to guide it," she says. "First of all, Jacques taught me, you are the protector of the instrument before you are an artist working on it."
Unlike with most animation, meticulous planning would be detrimental to working with the pinscreen,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale turquoise beads from china, Lemieux says: "It's not a technique. It's much more parallel to a music instrument. It has its own mechanics and you have to find out the way to work with it, and it doesn't always do what you want it to do." So, Lemieux sketched her ideas and created four acts around themes, but primarily, she created as she went along: "It's direct animation, inventing on the spot."
Here and the Great Elsewhere has little in the way of plot. Rather it's a big-ideas meditation, similar to this year's brilliant animated feature Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day. In Here and the Great Elsewhere, a man who lives inside of the pinscreen emerges to discover a surrounding world of floating jellyfish creatures, shooting stars, scuttling spiders. Other scenes center on mating atoms, creation, and collision. Here and the Great Elsewhere is tangled and gorgeous, like moss or wildflowers; it has a certain natural logic, but it seems to sprout unintentionally to the viewer's eye. It's about the universe in the way of Terrence Malick's Tree of Life: disparate images, floating into one another. It's about discovery, not understanding.
There are very high expectations for Danny Boyle's next movie following his Olympian feats in Stratford over the summer. No, the Queen won't be falling out of a plane this time round. Boyle is instead offering us an embroiled thriller involving art heists and hypnotherapy, and starring James McAvoy and Rosario Dawson.
Fearless Danish maverick Lars Von Trier announced that his new film will be about “the erotic life of a woman from the age of zero to the age of 50.” At the time he hatched the project, he was still in disgrace because of his ill-judged remarks about Adolf Hitler at a press conference. He didn't hide the fact that he wanted the film to depict sex in a very graphic manner. Even so, top European and American actors queued up to work on Nymphomaniac, among them Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe, Shia LaBeouf and Christian Slater. This is likely to be the most talked about movie in Cannes... if the festival organisers allow Von Trier back.
There has already been one excellent recent film about skullduggery on Wall St, Arbitrage, in which Richard Gere gave his best performance in years as a Bernie Madoff-like financier with Mr Goodbar-like charm. Martin Scorsese, more accustomed to making movies about mobsters, is bound to relish portraying white-collar crime and corporate corruption. Leonardo DiCaprio, who excels in Quentin Tarantino's forthcoming Django Unchained, stars as the hard-driving, hard-partying broker Jordan Belfort.
An intriguing double bill, reflecting female heroines in contrasting predicaments. Purcell's tale of the Trojan prince who falls in love with the Carthaginian queen climaxes in Dido's great lament “When I am laid in earth”. Poulenc's embattled telephone monologue will be sung by Lesley Garrett, making her return to the operatic stage.
2012年12月19日 星期三
Governor visits The Seeing Eye in Morristown
Governor Kim Guadagno on Friday
visited Morristown-based The Seeing Eye, which helps blind and visually impaired
individuals gain independence and mobility by using trained dogs.
The Seeing Eye teaches up to 288 people a year to use and benefit from a trained Seeing Eye dog. The 83-year old school, the oldest of its kind in the world, has 155 employees and more than 700 active volunteers. Its mission is to enhance the independence, dignity and self-confidence of the blind through the use of trained dogs.
“The Seeing Eye is a unique New Jersey institution,” said Guadagno. “For more than more 80 years, The Seeing Eye has helped thousands overcome visual impairments to become mobile and live independently.Find detailed product information for howo tractor and other products. Thanks to The Seeing Eye, individuals with visual disabilities are able to attend school, have good and well-paying jobs and live productive and meaningful lives. We are especially proud that this organization calls New Jersey home.”
The Seeing Eye breeds, raises and trains the puppies, as well as instructs the visually impaired in the proper use, handling and care of a Seeing Eye dog. More than 93 percent of those who completed The Seeing Eye training program report that they are more mobile now than before they had a Seeing Eye dog, according to a survey conducted for organization.
Thanks to a $19.14 million tax-exempt bond issued by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority in June 2012, The Seeing Eye is expanding and modernizing its student building, building a parking garage, expanding its administrative building, upgrading its equipment and making other site improvements.
Improvements to the school’s nearly 50-year-old student building will include its heating, cooling and ventilation system, kitchen, bathrooms and electrical system and the installation of new windows and an elevator. The building will also be wired for high-speed Internet service. Upgrades to the school’s equipment include installing an escalator, which will help train dogs and blind students how to safely get on and off a moving escalator.
“The campus renovation will improve the lives of our students, our dogs, and our employees,” said James A. Kutsch Jr., president and chief exewcutive officer of The Seeing Eye.Klaus Multiparking is an industry leader in innovative parking system technology. “With the financing obtained through the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, we will be able to move forward much more rapidly with our plans to provide new training opportunities right here on our campus, which will lead to improved safety and effectiveness for Seeing Eye teams.”
Established in 1925, The Seeing Eye has been in Morris County since 1931 and moved to Morristown in 1965. The school celebrated its 15,000 match in 2010 and has 1,700 active teams in the United States and Canada.
The heating system at Shaw Avenue School is old, problematic and needs to be upgraded, school officials say. So it will be. This was one of several projects highlighted at District 30’s annual building inspection for members of the public and Board of Education last week.
The radiant heat system in original section of the building, which was constructed in 1950, will be replaced. Rooms in the that area of the building are heated from the floor, which contain a web of pipes carrying hot water.
However, it is becoming a more common occurrence for the 62-year-old pipes to break. That happened as recently as February, when pipes broke underneath one classroom. It knocked out the heat to an entire wing for two days and a class had to relocated for a month while the floor was dug up and the repair made. It cost $30,000 to fix, noted Facilities Director Greg Abbate.
To replace the system, heating and ventilation units will be installed in every classroom, and baseboard heating in some smaller rooms.Western Canadian distributor of ceramic and ceramic tile, The units will go along the outside wall, which means some existing shelving units will have to be removed. Holes will also have to be cut in the walls to bring in fresh air from the outside.
Abbate said that the district will have a little more than two months to get the project done. “It’s quite a job,” he said. “We’ll have to move right along.”
The project will cost $1.7 million, which includes the replacement of two boilers. Money is coming from the Capital Reserve Fund, and the expense was approved by voters in May.
For the first time, District 30 held its building inspection twice. One tour took place before school on Dec. 10, and the other last Saturday morning. During those tours, members of the board and community not only got to learn about upcoming projects like the new heat system at Shaw Avenue, but see some work that has been completed in the past year.
At Forest Road, Abbate showed the new sidewalks that were installed leading to the main entrance of the building, as well as some new brick work around the flag pole. The step into the school was eliminated and the sidewalks pitched making the entrance handicapped accessible.
New doors were installed at all three schools. Abbate noted that the doors at Clear Stream Avenue School have a wood grain to resemble those from when it was built in 1923. Board members also got a look at some repainting that was done there in the downstairs computer lab and library.
Abbate showed the new playground blacktop at Shaw Avenue School. For the future, he said he wants to replace the pavement at Clear Stream Avenue, which has been patched several times.
Some other upcoming projects that have already been approved include a replacement of the communications system throughout the district, new water filtration tanks at Forest Road School and a new electrical distribution system at Clear Stream. Lisa Rutkoske, the assistant superintendent for business, said there is no main shut off switch at Clear Stream, which means in order to turn off power there to do electrical work, the district has to call LIPA.
Abbate said he plans to have the carpet removed in the Shaw Avenue library, which is ripping and bubbling in some places. It would be replaced with carpet tiles. “That way, when there is a problem, we can take up a square,Trade platform for China crystal mosaic manufacturers” he said. “It will be a time saver and a money saver.”
He also said the back fence needs to be replaced there, which was leaning into the backyards of neighboring properties during Hurricane Sandy.
In May, voters will likely again be asked to approved spending money from the Capital Reserve Fund for projects that would take place in the summer of 2014. Forest Road would see the bulk of the work. The board will consider replacing the heating and ventilation units there at a cost of about $600,000,Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic rubber hose tubing, as well as ceiling tiles and lights for about $550,000. Energy efficient lighting would be installed.
The Seeing Eye teaches up to 288 people a year to use and benefit from a trained Seeing Eye dog. The 83-year old school, the oldest of its kind in the world, has 155 employees and more than 700 active volunteers. Its mission is to enhance the independence, dignity and self-confidence of the blind through the use of trained dogs.
“The Seeing Eye is a unique New Jersey institution,” said Guadagno. “For more than more 80 years, The Seeing Eye has helped thousands overcome visual impairments to become mobile and live independently.Find detailed product information for howo tractor and other products. Thanks to The Seeing Eye, individuals with visual disabilities are able to attend school, have good and well-paying jobs and live productive and meaningful lives. We are especially proud that this organization calls New Jersey home.”
The Seeing Eye breeds, raises and trains the puppies, as well as instructs the visually impaired in the proper use, handling and care of a Seeing Eye dog. More than 93 percent of those who completed The Seeing Eye training program report that they are more mobile now than before they had a Seeing Eye dog, according to a survey conducted for organization.
Thanks to a $19.14 million tax-exempt bond issued by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority in June 2012, The Seeing Eye is expanding and modernizing its student building, building a parking garage, expanding its administrative building, upgrading its equipment and making other site improvements.
Improvements to the school’s nearly 50-year-old student building will include its heating, cooling and ventilation system, kitchen, bathrooms and electrical system and the installation of new windows and an elevator. The building will also be wired for high-speed Internet service. Upgrades to the school’s equipment include installing an escalator, which will help train dogs and blind students how to safely get on and off a moving escalator.
“The campus renovation will improve the lives of our students, our dogs, and our employees,” said James A. Kutsch Jr., president and chief exewcutive officer of The Seeing Eye.Klaus Multiparking is an industry leader in innovative parking system technology. “With the financing obtained through the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, we will be able to move forward much more rapidly with our plans to provide new training opportunities right here on our campus, which will lead to improved safety and effectiveness for Seeing Eye teams.”
Established in 1925, The Seeing Eye has been in Morris County since 1931 and moved to Morristown in 1965. The school celebrated its 15,000 match in 2010 and has 1,700 active teams in the United States and Canada.
The heating system at Shaw Avenue School is old, problematic and needs to be upgraded, school officials say. So it will be. This was one of several projects highlighted at District 30’s annual building inspection for members of the public and Board of Education last week.
The radiant heat system in original section of the building, which was constructed in 1950, will be replaced. Rooms in the that area of the building are heated from the floor, which contain a web of pipes carrying hot water.
However, it is becoming a more common occurrence for the 62-year-old pipes to break. That happened as recently as February, when pipes broke underneath one classroom. It knocked out the heat to an entire wing for two days and a class had to relocated for a month while the floor was dug up and the repair made. It cost $30,000 to fix, noted Facilities Director Greg Abbate.
To replace the system, heating and ventilation units will be installed in every classroom, and baseboard heating in some smaller rooms.Western Canadian distributor of ceramic and ceramic tile, The units will go along the outside wall, which means some existing shelving units will have to be removed. Holes will also have to be cut in the walls to bring in fresh air from the outside.
Abbate said that the district will have a little more than two months to get the project done. “It’s quite a job,” he said. “We’ll have to move right along.”
The project will cost $1.7 million, which includes the replacement of two boilers. Money is coming from the Capital Reserve Fund, and the expense was approved by voters in May.
For the first time, District 30 held its building inspection twice. One tour took place before school on Dec. 10, and the other last Saturday morning. During those tours, members of the board and community not only got to learn about upcoming projects like the new heat system at Shaw Avenue, but see some work that has been completed in the past year.
At Forest Road, Abbate showed the new sidewalks that were installed leading to the main entrance of the building, as well as some new brick work around the flag pole. The step into the school was eliminated and the sidewalks pitched making the entrance handicapped accessible.
New doors were installed at all three schools. Abbate noted that the doors at Clear Stream Avenue School have a wood grain to resemble those from when it was built in 1923. Board members also got a look at some repainting that was done there in the downstairs computer lab and library.
Abbate showed the new playground blacktop at Shaw Avenue School. For the future, he said he wants to replace the pavement at Clear Stream Avenue, which has been patched several times.
Some other upcoming projects that have already been approved include a replacement of the communications system throughout the district, new water filtration tanks at Forest Road School and a new electrical distribution system at Clear Stream. Lisa Rutkoske, the assistant superintendent for business, said there is no main shut off switch at Clear Stream, which means in order to turn off power there to do electrical work, the district has to call LIPA.
Abbate said he plans to have the carpet removed in the Shaw Avenue library, which is ripping and bubbling in some places. It would be replaced with carpet tiles. “That way, when there is a problem, we can take up a square,Trade platform for China crystal mosaic manufacturers” he said. “It will be a time saver and a money saver.”
He also said the back fence needs to be replaced there, which was leaning into the backyards of neighboring properties during Hurricane Sandy.
In May, voters will likely again be asked to approved spending money from the Capital Reserve Fund for projects that would take place in the summer of 2014. Forest Road would see the bulk of the work. The board will consider replacing the heating and ventilation units there at a cost of about $600,000,Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic rubber hose tubing, as well as ceiling tiles and lights for about $550,000. Energy efficient lighting would be installed.
2012年12月12日 星期三
Iluka Staring At More Downside
Last year when the rare earth metal market was driven
into a spectacular price bubble, mineral sands products were swept along in the
tide. The zircon and titanium derived from mineral sands are not rare earth
elements, but there are similarities in that production development of both had
been neglected over decades, and large deposits are relatively rare. Australia's
Iluka Resources ((ILU)) boasts the largest reserves and production globally – a
clear leader amongst a mere handful of commercial producers.
A clear difference is that China controls the global rare earth market but has no mineral sands to speak of. Hence while the rare earth price bubble was directly related to Chinese export restrictions, and a herd mentality, the simultaneous bubble in zircon/titanium was more a case of rocketing Chinese demand meeting limited supply. The herd,A specialized manufacturer and supplier of dry cabinet, again, did the rest.We mainly supply professional craftspeople with crys talbeads wholesale shamballa Bracele , Zircon is used primarily to make pigments used in the production of tiles (think bathroom, kitchen, floor) while titanium oxide produces the pigment that puts the “white” in “whitegood”. Exponential Chinese demand was not hard to justify given the substantial shift of the Chinese populace towards middle class home ownership.
The rare earth price bubble all but destroyed the rare earth industry, such that when China finally eased export restrictions prices went into a free-fall from which they are yet to recover. As rare earth prices fell, so too did zircon/titanium prices. To a large extent this was by association, but the price peak also represented the point at which China was just going to buy more product. Along the way, China had been stockpiling, as it is wont to do, so when prices became too ridiculous, consumers started drawing down inventory.
Hence began the age old game among analysts oft called “catching the falling knife” in which a price floor is estimated. To date, analysts have been proven overly ambitious. In what has seemed like a heartbeat, Iluka has gone from desperately ramping up mineral sands expansion projects to limiting production in the hope of arresting price falls. To top things off, Iluka is one resource producer very sensitive to the currency, and the strong Aussie is certainly not helping.
Last week UBS decided destocking was still underway right across the zircon and titanium production chains, notwithstanding weak end-consumer demand, such that prices are expected to remain under pressure at least in the near term.The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. UBS doesn't which to commit, but suggests prices will likely recover sometime between the second quarter of 2013 and 2014 in general.
As far as Deutsche Bank is concerned,This is my favourite sites to purchase those special pieces of buy mosaic materials from. price weakness will continue for at least six months. The earlier price spike affected some long-term demand destructict walls.
It was once rented out, the couple said, and “chopped up and divided” to accommodate people on several levels, possibly during World War II.
They discovered 1,500 African elephant tusks hidden in a secret compartment under several pieces of wooden blocks. The goods were declared as "Acajou-type" mahogany wooden floor tiles on the shipping bill of loading.
Azis said syndicates were using Malaysian ports as a transit point to ship such goods to the far east, noting that several cases of ivory smuggling had been detected in the past two years.
"In the latest case, the goods came from the port of Lome in Togo and were heading to China when we intercepted them."
He said the syndicate behind the smuggling operations had used ship-switching tactics by first sailing from Togo via the ship Marivia before embarking at the port of Algeciras in Spain.
"In Spain, they switched the containers to the CMA CGM Titus ship prior to sailing here," he said, adding that the containers were about to be switched to another ship when Customs enforcement officers intercepted them.
Azis dismissed the involvement of locals in the syndicate but added that a Klang-based company was being investigated under Section 133 Customs Act 1967 for false declaration.
He said the seized tusks would be handed to the Wildlife and National Parks Department.Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injection mould manufacture,
In January, an attempt by an international syndicate to smuggle 500kg of elephant tusks worth RM2.4 million was foiled by Customs officers while in December last year, another attempt to smuggle 15 tonnes of elephant tusks and ivory handicraft worth RM4 million was foiled at the West Port.
A clear difference is that China controls the global rare earth market but has no mineral sands to speak of. Hence while the rare earth price bubble was directly related to Chinese export restrictions, and a herd mentality, the simultaneous bubble in zircon/titanium was more a case of rocketing Chinese demand meeting limited supply. The herd,A specialized manufacturer and supplier of dry cabinet, again, did the rest.We mainly supply professional craftspeople with crys talbeads wholesale shamballa Bracele , Zircon is used primarily to make pigments used in the production of tiles (think bathroom, kitchen, floor) while titanium oxide produces the pigment that puts the “white” in “whitegood”. Exponential Chinese demand was not hard to justify given the substantial shift of the Chinese populace towards middle class home ownership.
The rare earth price bubble all but destroyed the rare earth industry, such that when China finally eased export restrictions prices went into a free-fall from which they are yet to recover. As rare earth prices fell, so too did zircon/titanium prices. To a large extent this was by association, but the price peak also represented the point at which China was just going to buy more product. Along the way, China had been stockpiling, as it is wont to do, so when prices became too ridiculous, consumers started drawing down inventory.
Hence began the age old game among analysts oft called “catching the falling knife” in which a price floor is estimated. To date, analysts have been proven overly ambitious. In what has seemed like a heartbeat, Iluka has gone from desperately ramping up mineral sands expansion projects to limiting production in the hope of arresting price falls. To top things off, Iluka is one resource producer very sensitive to the currency, and the strong Aussie is certainly not helping.
Last week UBS decided destocking was still underway right across the zircon and titanium production chains, notwithstanding weak end-consumer demand, such that prices are expected to remain under pressure at least in the near term.The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. UBS doesn't which to commit, but suggests prices will likely recover sometime between the second quarter of 2013 and 2014 in general.
As far as Deutsche Bank is concerned,This is my favourite sites to purchase those special pieces of buy mosaic materials from. price weakness will continue for at least six months. The earlier price spike affected some long-term demand destructict walls.
It was once rented out, the couple said, and “chopped up and divided” to accommodate people on several levels, possibly during World War II.
They discovered 1,500 African elephant tusks hidden in a secret compartment under several pieces of wooden blocks. The goods were declared as "Acajou-type" mahogany wooden floor tiles on the shipping bill of loading.
Azis said syndicates were using Malaysian ports as a transit point to ship such goods to the far east, noting that several cases of ivory smuggling had been detected in the past two years.
"In the latest case, the goods came from the port of Lome in Togo and were heading to China when we intercepted them."
He said the syndicate behind the smuggling operations had used ship-switching tactics by first sailing from Togo via the ship Marivia before embarking at the port of Algeciras in Spain.
"In Spain, they switched the containers to the CMA CGM Titus ship prior to sailing here," he said, adding that the containers were about to be switched to another ship when Customs enforcement officers intercepted them.
Azis dismissed the involvement of locals in the syndicate but added that a Klang-based company was being investigated under Section 133 Customs Act 1967 for false declaration.
He said the seized tusks would be handed to the Wildlife and National Parks Department.Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injection mould manufacture,
In January, an attempt by an international syndicate to smuggle 500kg of elephant tusks worth RM2.4 million was foiled by Customs officers while in December last year, another attempt to smuggle 15 tonnes of elephant tusks and ivory handicraft worth RM4 million was foiled at the West Port.
2012年12月10日 星期一
Growing in North America Automation called key to paring costs
Now it's looked on as a way to minimize labor content, improve
productivity, bring down costs and—consequently—to keep more
manufacturing in North America.
Being successful in the automation of rubber goods production, however, takes planning and a close inspection of all variables of the manufacturing process, according to speakers at a recent open house at Desma USA Inc.'s headquarters in Hebron.
“We see a real need to automate to keep things in North America,” said Desma USA President Scott Early. “In order to do that, you really have to drill down and reduce the direct labor content.”
That goal is achievable when proper planning and collaboration takes place, said the president of the supplier of injection molding machinery and tooling.
It also needs a fresh perspective and a willingness to look closely at each area of production without being tied to past practices.
“If the industry continues to approach things like we did for the last 30 years, automation woOur technology gives rtls systems developers the ability.n't come with the success that it should,” Early said. “But if a project engineer says "I'm going to automate,' and he brings in the tooling guy upfront and the automation guy, and we talk to the mold maker about all these details, the cell has a great chance for success.”
When looking at available automation on rubber injection molding machines, not everything can be automated, but more things can than many think, according to Bob Matola, a project engineering manager at Desma USA.
He presented a long list of tasks within the injection molding process ripe for automation and showed a video of how two robots were used to make rubber shoes for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
“Five years ago I didn't think automation in rubber was even possible,This is my favourite sites to purchase those special pieces of buy mosaic materials from.” Matola said. “There are too many variables.”
John Baines, president and CEO of Hahn Automation USA,We specialize in howo concrete mixer, said there are a number of factors rubber product makers must consider before deciding to automate a process.
First and foremost, processors shouldn't try to re-create a manual process.
“Operators have lots of tricks that aren't transferrable,” said Baines, whose company also is located in Hebron and has worked on projects in conjunction with Desma. “Is it manual for a reason?”
He said it's also important to maintain production flexibility if possible and match your capabilities, meaning not to make a process too complicated when there aren't proper personnel to back it up. He noted a highly automated process that is out of service often brings no savings at all.
Other factors to be taken into account include budget and cycle time. “You have to do what is right for your company and your application,” Baines said. “Your solution is your solution.'
Tooling also must be designed with automation in mind, said Derek Langtry, Desma USA's mold shop manager.
“It's very important to analyze your article and work inside out with tooling,” he said. “You don't have the eye of an operator, so you have to pay attention to this detail when designing your system.”
Donald Picard, vice president of sales and marketing at Hexpol Compounding, implored attendees not to wait too long to consider the compound that will be used for the application.
Things to be considered include the cure system selected; cost consideration; tear resistance; whether it will be bonded to a substrate; whether the mold release will be internal or external; length of the cycle; and maximum temperature limits, among other variables.
“Like everything else in life, it's a balance,” Picard said. “You may give up one thing to gain another. But don't wait too late in the process to consider the elastomer.”
While most of the program focused on injection molding, automation also can improve the compression molding process, said Thomas Klimpl, global sales manager of Wickert Hydraulic Presses.
He cited such advantages as improved quality with reproducible production, and the ability to design the press without regards to the operator.
“It's not sufficient to replace the operator with a robot,High quality stone mosaic tiles.” he said. “You need to reinvent the whole process. You also should take into consideration the processes before and after molding. You can automate more than just the molding.”
Now it's looked on as a way to minimize labor content, improve productivity, bring down costs and—consequently—to keep more manufacturing in North America.
Being successful in the automation of rubber goods production, however, takes planning and a close inspection of all variables of the manufacturing process, according to speakers at a recent open house at Desma USA Inc.The MaxSonar ultrasonic sensor offers very short to long-range detection and ranging.'s headquarters in Hebron.
“We see a real need to automate to keep things in North America,” said Desma USA President Scott Early. “In order to do that, you really have to drill down and reduce the direct labor content.”
That goal is achievable when proper planning and collaboration takes place, said the president of the supplier of injection molding machinery and tooling.
It also needs a fresh perspective and a willingness to look closely at each area of production without being tied to past practices.
“If the industry continues to approach things like we did for the last 30 years, automation won't come with the success that it should,” Early said. “But if a project engineer says "I'm going to automate,' and he brings in the tooling guy upfront and the automation guy, and we talk to the mold maker about all these details, the cell has a great chance for success.”
When looking at available automation on rubber injection molding machines, not everything can be automated, but more things can than many think, according to Bob Matola, a project engineering manager at Desma USA.
He presented a long list of tasks within the injection molding process ripe for automation and showed a video of how two robots were used to make rubber shoes for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
“Five years ago I didn't think automation in rubber was even possible,” Matola said. “There are too many variables.”
John Baines, president and CEO of Hahn Automation USA, said there are a number of factors rubber product makers must consider before deciding to automate a process.
Being successful in the automation of rubber goods production, however, takes planning and a close inspection of all variables of the manufacturing process, according to speakers at a recent open house at Desma USA Inc.'s headquarters in Hebron.
“We see a real need to automate to keep things in North America,” said Desma USA President Scott Early. “In order to do that, you really have to drill down and reduce the direct labor content.”
That goal is achievable when proper planning and collaboration takes place, said the president of the supplier of injection molding machinery and tooling.
It also needs a fresh perspective and a willingness to look closely at each area of production without being tied to past practices.
“If the industry continues to approach things like we did for the last 30 years, automation woOur technology gives rtls systems developers the ability.n't come with the success that it should,” Early said. “But if a project engineer says "I'm going to automate,' and he brings in the tooling guy upfront and the automation guy, and we talk to the mold maker about all these details, the cell has a great chance for success.”
When looking at available automation on rubber injection molding machines, not everything can be automated, but more things can than many think, according to Bob Matola, a project engineering manager at Desma USA.
He presented a long list of tasks within the injection molding process ripe for automation and showed a video of how two robots were used to make rubber shoes for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
“Five years ago I didn't think automation in rubber was even possible,This is my favourite sites to purchase those special pieces of buy mosaic materials from.” Matola said. “There are too many variables.”
John Baines, president and CEO of Hahn Automation USA,We specialize in howo concrete mixer, said there are a number of factors rubber product makers must consider before deciding to automate a process.
First and foremost, processors shouldn't try to re-create a manual process.
“Operators have lots of tricks that aren't transferrable,” said Baines, whose company also is located in Hebron and has worked on projects in conjunction with Desma. “Is it manual for a reason?”
He said it's also important to maintain production flexibility if possible and match your capabilities, meaning not to make a process too complicated when there aren't proper personnel to back it up. He noted a highly automated process that is out of service often brings no savings at all.
Other factors to be taken into account include budget and cycle time. “You have to do what is right for your company and your application,” Baines said. “Your solution is your solution.'
Tooling also must be designed with automation in mind, said Derek Langtry, Desma USA's mold shop manager.
“It's very important to analyze your article and work inside out with tooling,” he said. “You don't have the eye of an operator, so you have to pay attention to this detail when designing your system.”
Donald Picard, vice president of sales and marketing at Hexpol Compounding, implored attendees not to wait too long to consider the compound that will be used for the application.
Things to be considered include the cure system selected; cost consideration; tear resistance; whether it will be bonded to a substrate; whether the mold release will be internal or external; length of the cycle; and maximum temperature limits, among other variables.
“Like everything else in life, it's a balance,” Picard said. “You may give up one thing to gain another. But don't wait too late in the process to consider the elastomer.”
While most of the program focused on injection molding, automation also can improve the compression molding process, said Thomas Klimpl, global sales manager of Wickert Hydraulic Presses.
He cited such advantages as improved quality with reproducible production, and the ability to design the press without regards to the operator.
“It's not sufficient to replace the operator with a robot,High quality stone mosaic tiles.” he said. “You need to reinvent the whole process. You also should take into consideration the processes before and after molding. You can automate more than just the molding.”
Now it's looked on as a way to minimize labor content, improve productivity, bring down costs and—consequently—to keep more manufacturing in North America.
Being successful in the automation of rubber goods production, however, takes planning and a close inspection of all variables of the manufacturing process, according to speakers at a recent open house at Desma USA Inc.The MaxSonar ultrasonic sensor offers very short to long-range detection and ranging.'s headquarters in Hebron.
“We see a real need to automate to keep things in North America,” said Desma USA President Scott Early. “In order to do that, you really have to drill down and reduce the direct labor content.”
That goal is achievable when proper planning and collaboration takes place, said the president of the supplier of injection molding machinery and tooling.
It also needs a fresh perspective and a willingness to look closely at each area of production without being tied to past practices.
“If the industry continues to approach things like we did for the last 30 years, automation won't come with the success that it should,” Early said. “But if a project engineer says "I'm going to automate,' and he brings in the tooling guy upfront and the automation guy, and we talk to the mold maker about all these details, the cell has a great chance for success.”
When looking at available automation on rubber injection molding machines, not everything can be automated, but more things can than many think, according to Bob Matola, a project engineering manager at Desma USA.
He presented a long list of tasks within the injection molding process ripe for automation and showed a video of how two robots were used to make rubber shoes for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
“Five years ago I didn't think automation in rubber was even possible,” Matola said. “There are too many variables.”
John Baines, president and CEO of Hahn Automation USA, said there are a number of factors rubber product makers must consider before deciding to automate a process.
Lennox turns up the heat
Lennox is perhaps one of the best known names in both residential and
commercial heating and air conditioning. In business since 1895, the
Texas-based company today sells a wide range of products for both
homeowners and businesses. Its residential air conditioning business
alone offers more than 60 heating and cooling products, all made in
North America.
Not long ago, that consumer goods unit filled equipment orders from a single national finished-goods distribution center in Marshalltown, Iowa, near the company's first factory. The DC fed product to 65 small distribution locations around the country that, in turn, served Lennox's 6,000 dealers and contractors. At the same time, the company operated a DC in Des Moines, Iowa, about 40 miles away, that handled parts and supplies.
But over the past three years,Western Canadian distributor of ceramic and ceramic tile, it has changed that model significantly, abandoning the national model and developing a network of eight regional DCs.
What started Lennox down that road was a search for distribution improvements as well as a broader strategic change in the company's operations. In a bid to reach more of the nation's HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) contractors, Lennox had decided to open new storefronts around the country. It now operates some 130 stores nationwide—a significant increase in the number of outlets served. "We doubled the number of touch points with customers," says Keith Nash, Lennox's vice president of supply chain logistics.
But serving all of those stores from the existing DC would have been far too expensive. "We needed economical distribution to the store locations," Nash says. "We needed [to move to] the hub-and-spoke model to adequately serve those stores."
In addition, the company was looking to reduce order cycle times and the amount of inventory in transit—goals that a shift to a regional DC network would allow it to achieve. Today, 95 percent of customers are within reach of overnight shipments, either from the storefronts or directly from the regional DCs.
The shift to the regional model won't be completed until the first quarter of 2013, but the process began more than three years ago, starting at the finished-goods DC in Marshalltown.
One of the topics that had to be addressed early on was technology. From the start, it was apparent that the technology that worked for the small warehouses wouldn't be sufficient for new DCs ranging from 350,000 to 400,000 square feet in size and an order volume that reaches 2.2 million lines a year. The company decided it would have to to invest in new technology, specifically a warehouse management system (WMS) and a transportation management system (TMS).
"If we were going to do distribution effectively, we had to up our game," Nash says. "We had a lot to gain in cost per transaction, cost per carton, and accuracy."
Since Lennox was already using SAP's enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, the company first considered installing that vendor's WMS. In the end, however, it chose Manhattan Associates' warehouse and transportation management suite with Manhattan's Supply Chain Process Platform as the architecture. Lennox chose the Manhattan solutions in large part because the two systems were designed to work together. "We thought that would be one less set of integrations that would have to be managed," Nash explains.
The new technology offers a number of operational advantages. For instance,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale turquoise beads from china, the integrated system produces a shipping label at the same time it sends an order through the WMS. "We can touch it once and put it down," says Nash. "You have to have integrated warehousing and transportation systems to do that."
Under the current system, orders drop at the Lennox DCs several times a day. "It's real time enough," Nash says. Most orders can go directly to an outbound door, but there are some exceptions. For instance,The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. Lennox knows enough about its customers to anticipate when a particular customer may order several times during the day. "We know the probability that there will be other orders, so we don't pick early in the morning," Nash says. Instead, all of the orders from the customer are consolidated into a single shipment later in the day but early enough to meet next-day delivery commitments.
The system also splits direct-to-customer deliveries from shipments to the Lennox stores. Lennox can comingle those shipments on its trucks, a dedicated fleet operated by third parties. Some outbound shipments also move via less-than-truckload and truckload carriers.High quality mold making Videos teaches anyone how to make molds.
"There is a lot of complexity in the background," Nash says. For instance, cutoff times vary based on the type of business, and routing can vary based on the day's orders. The system also gives Lennox the flexibility to bump emergency orders to the top of the list.Find detailed product information for howo spare parts and other products.
The DCs themselves use little in the way of automation and are lightly staffed, with 20 to 30 employees each. Lennox's products are heavy and bulky, and 70 percent are stored on the floor. Most goods are handled by lift trucks with a specialized attachment—a flat blade that slides under the boxed products. Parts and supplies are stored in bins or broken-case storage.
As for the results, Nash says the DCs have seen marked improvements in productivity since installing the new systems and adopting what he calls "good lean distribution practices." "We are literally able to drop an order and pick, pack, and ship in less than half an hour," he says.
Where hard measures are available, the numbers are impressive. For example, inventory accuracy now stands at 99.985 percent. "This company has never seen that before," Nash says. He adds that outbound accuracy is also very high, which, in turn, reduces the total cost to serve. Productivity measured in cartons per person handled has improved 10 to 15 percent each year during the transition.
The transportation-related benefits are harder to quantify because of the wide variations in transportation costs over the past three years, Nash says. "It is hard to get an apples-to-apples comparison, but there is less total cost," he says. "Next year, we'll see more because we are finally finishing the network change. We will have a lower total cost of distribution.
Not long ago, that consumer goods unit filled equipment orders from a single national finished-goods distribution center in Marshalltown, Iowa, near the company's first factory. The DC fed product to 65 small distribution locations around the country that, in turn, served Lennox's 6,000 dealers and contractors. At the same time, the company operated a DC in Des Moines, Iowa, about 40 miles away, that handled parts and supplies.
But over the past three years,Western Canadian distributor of ceramic and ceramic tile, it has changed that model significantly, abandoning the national model and developing a network of eight regional DCs.
What started Lennox down that road was a search for distribution improvements as well as a broader strategic change in the company's operations. In a bid to reach more of the nation's HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) contractors, Lennox had decided to open new storefronts around the country. It now operates some 130 stores nationwide—a significant increase in the number of outlets served. "We doubled the number of touch points with customers," says Keith Nash, Lennox's vice president of supply chain logistics.
But serving all of those stores from the existing DC would have been far too expensive. "We needed economical distribution to the store locations," Nash says. "We needed [to move to] the hub-and-spoke model to adequately serve those stores."
In addition, the company was looking to reduce order cycle times and the amount of inventory in transit—goals that a shift to a regional DC network would allow it to achieve. Today, 95 percent of customers are within reach of overnight shipments, either from the storefronts or directly from the regional DCs.
The shift to the regional model won't be completed until the first quarter of 2013, but the process began more than three years ago, starting at the finished-goods DC in Marshalltown.
One of the topics that had to be addressed early on was technology. From the start, it was apparent that the technology that worked for the small warehouses wouldn't be sufficient for new DCs ranging from 350,000 to 400,000 square feet in size and an order volume that reaches 2.2 million lines a year. The company decided it would have to to invest in new technology, specifically a warehouse management system (WMS) and a transportation management system (TMS).
"If we were going to do distribution effectively, we had to up our game," Nash says. "We had a lot to gain in cost per transaction, cost per carton, and accuracy."
Since Lennox was already using SAP's enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, the company first considered installing that vendor's WMS. In the end, however, it chose Manhattan Associates' warehouse and transportation management suite with Manhattan's Supply Chain Process Platform as the architecture. Lennox chose the Manhattan solutions in large part because the two systems were designed to work together. "We thought that would be one less set of integrations that would have to be managed," Nash explains.
The new technology offers a number of operational advantages. For instance,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale turquoise beads from china, the integrated system produces a shipping label at the same time it sends an order through the WMS. "We can touch it once and put it down," says Nash. "You have to have integrated warehousing and transportation systems to do that."
Under the current system, orders drop at the Lennox DCs several times a day. "It's real time enough," Nash says. Most orders can go directly to an outbound door, but there are some exceptions. For instance,The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. Lennox knows enough about its customers to anticipate when a particular customer may order several times during the day. "We know the probability that there will be other orders, so we don't pick early in the morning," Nash says. Instead, all of the orders from the customer are consolidated into a single shipment later in the day but early enough to meet next-day delivery commitments.
The system also splits direct-to-customer deliveries from shipments to the Lennox stores. Lennox can comingle those shipments on its trucks, a dedicated fleet operated by third parties. Some outbound shipments also move via less-than-truckload and truckload carriers.High quality mold making Videos teaches anyone how to make molds.
"There is a lot of complexity in the background," Nash says. For instance, cutoff times vary based on the type of business, and routing can vary based on the day's orders. The system also gives Lennox the flexibility to bump emergency orders to the top of the list.Find detailed product information for howo spare parts and other products.
The DCs themselves use little in the way of automation and are lightly staffed, with 20 to 30 employees each. Lennox's products are heavy and bulky, and 70 percent are stored on the floor. Most goods are handled by lift trucks with a specialized attachment—a flat blade that slides under the boxed products. Parts and supplies are stored in bins or broken-case storage.
As for the results, Nash says the DCs have seen marked improvements in productivity since installing the new systems and adopting what he calls "good lean distribution practices." "We are literally able to drop an order and pick, pack, and ship in less than half an hour," he says.
Where hard measures are available, the numbers are impressive. For example, inventory accuracy now stands at 99.985 percent. "This company has never seen that before," Nash says. He adds that outbound accuracy is also very high, which, in turn, reduces the total cost to serve. Productivity measured in cartons per person handled has improved 10 to 15 percent each year during the transition.
The transportation-related benefits are harder to quantify because of the wide variations in transportation costs over the past three years, Nash says. "It is hard to get an apples-to-apples comparison, but there is less total cost," he says. "Next year, we'll see more because we are finally finishing the network change. We will have a lower total cost of distribution.
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