2012年5月31日 星期四

Exploring biblical sites of southeastern Turkey

Departing Sanliurfa, we make a stop at Harran, one of the oldest continuously lived-in places in the world. Harran (also known as Carrhae) is an archaeological site of great value as an ancient center of commerce. The legends surrounding Harran go to the beginning of man and it is said that Adam and Eve came here when they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. It is also mentioned in the Book of Genesis that Abraham and his family lived in Harran for several years on their way to Canaan. Harran is also famous for its traditional “beehive” adobe houses constructed entirely without wood. Their design makes them cool inside and it is thought that this design has been unchanged for 3,000 years. Today, most of Harran’s population lives in a nearby village.

Visiting Harran’s fortress with its unusual 10-sided towers, walls and Aleppo Gate, we also see the Grand Mosque built in the 8th century, one of the oldest and largest mosques of Anatolia – restored during the Selcuk period – with its beautiful stone masonry.

Lunch today is at the Ataturk Dam, which is part of the Southeastern Anatolia Project to bring water to this part of dry land and turn it into a breadbasket of the Middle East. It is the largest development project in Turkey with its goal of extensive irrigation for active farming and bringing electricity and clean water to every home. Similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority,We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design its scope covers nine provinces with major economic-development outreach.

We drive to Kahta for our climb to Mt. Nemrut, the site of the state of Commagene, made world-famous by the monumental heads commemorating its ruler, Antiochus I, a site among the Eight Historical Wonders of the world and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987. Our van driver takes us to the car park and refreshment stand from which we slowly start our 20-minute climb to the summit. We reach the Processional Way and East Terrace where there are five colossal statues believed to be Apollo, Zeus, Tyche, Heracles and Antiochus facing the dawn. Their heads have been toppled to the ground over the centuries due to earthquakes and erosion.I found them to have sharp edges where the injectionmoldes came together while production. Also, on the East Terrace is a massive square stone, the Altar. The West Terrace is identical to the East Terrace except for the Altar and has the same statues, somewhat in better shape and facing the sunset. King Antiochus I, who is responsible for this spectacular mountaintop site, is buried somewhere underneath. However, archaeologists have been unable to find his tomb. From 64 B.Full color plasticcard printing and manufacturing services.About 1 in 5 people in the UK have recurring coldsores.C. to 32 B.C., Antiochus was king of Commagene and all the kings of this Roman state claimed descent from Alexander the Great.

We wait until sunset arrives with its breathtaking views of this incredible site and then start the much easier climb down Mt. Nemrut. The other Commagene sites within the Mt. Nemrut National Park are the Karakus (Black Bird) Tumulus and the Statue and Cendere Bridge on Cendere Creek going back to the Roman times. It is one of the oldest bridges known in the world and is still in use.

Our next city is Gaziantep, which has been an important crossroads in every period in history. We visit the Archaeological Museum famous for its Roman mosaic collections and pictures excavated in Zeugma before the waters of the Southeastern Anatolia Project flooded this ancient site. Copper work and furniture with inlaid mother-of-pearl is the specialty of the artisans of Gaziantep and we get plenty of opportunities to purchase some. The city is famous for its rich cuisine and producing the best chefs in Turkey. Gaziantep is also world-renowned for its baklava, the Gulluoglu brand the most prominent. We all line up at its store to buy the freshly baked and boxed baklava. Last but not least, the city is the center of Turkey’s pistachio production where we take advantage of the reasonable prices and stock up on pistachios.

Before departing we also visit the Jewish and Armenian Houses district, the Kurtulus Mosque and the Ethnographical Museum, a typical Gaziantep house in the old city where documents and pictures of heroes and martyrs during the “Defense of Antep” are displayed. This took place after the European forces occupied the city following the defeat of the Ottoman army in World War I.

Today’s Antakya (Antioch) is where SS.Choose from our large selection of Cable Ties. Peter, Paul and Barnabas organized the first church of the Christians, and St. Paul used Antioch as headquarters of his missionary journeys. We visit the Cave Church of St. Peter, located just outside Antakya. It is widely believed the cave had been dug by Peter himself as a place for the early Christian community of Antioch to meet and thus to be the very first Christian church. SS. Peter and Paul did preach in Antioch around 50 A.D. and a church had been established in Antioch as early as 40 A.D. Antioch became a major center for planning and organizing the apostles’ missionary efforts and it was the inhabitants of Antioch who were the first to be called Christians as followers of Jesus Christ.

Suu Kyi presses for migrants' rights in Thailand

Long a fighter against oppression inside Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi has used her first foreign trip in 24 years to fight for her countrymen suffering abroad — millions of economic migrants unable to work at home but vulnerable to exploitation elsewhere.

On Thursday, she pressed her concerns about the millions of Myanmar migrants living in Thailand in a meeting with the country's deputy prime minister. And for a second straight day, she addressed throngs of migrants in Mahachai,We looked everywhere, but couldn't find any beddinges. a town southwest of Bangkok that hosts more migrants from Myanmar than any other place in Thailand.

"She can't force the Thai government to do anything, but she can speak on our behalf better than anybody else," said Win Aung, who lost his hand in an accident at a Thai-run shoe factory and is still fighting to obtain employer compensation for it a year and a half later.

"She's the best hope we have for things to change," the 31-year-old said.Offers Art Reproductions Fine Art oilpaintings Reproduction,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings?

Myanmar's sputtering economy, in ruins after half a century of military rule and years of harsh Western sanctions, has forced millions of people to seek jobs abroad.Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and porcelaintiles. Many crossed the borders illegally to work low-skilled jobs for long hours at pay below their Thai counterparts. They typically lack health and social security benefits, too, and complain of not being paid on public holidays.

Still, many make more than they would back home, and despite the hardships are keen to be employed. Jobs are severely lacking in Myanmar, which lags far behind the rest of bustling Asia.

Thailand alone hosts around 2.5 million migrant workers from Myanmar, and they are believed to make up between 5 and 10 percent of the Thai work force. Most of whom work in industries like fisheries or construction, or in garment factories or as domestic servants. Up to a million of them lack work permits.

Win Aung said he came to Thailand illegally, hoping he'd earn enough money to send proceeds to his family. But after six years, part of it spent at a shrimp processing plant, he has sent barely any.

And now, after his hand got crushed in a machine that molds rubber shoes, his prospects are exceptionally bleak.

"Nobody will hire you if you are disabled," he said, adding that he had no idea what he'd do next. "It isn't much better back home."

A local migrant workers rights group is now helping Win Aung win financial compensation from his Thai employer — $3,300 dollars. The employer has paid half and promised the rest in six months.

On Thursday, Suu Kyi called on Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubumrung to ensure that Thai businessmen do not exploit her countrymen. She recounted familiar stories of abuse, saying employers confiscate passports and other documents illegally to prevent workers from quitting for better-paid jobs. She also complained of the inadequate treatment they receive when injured at work.

Chalerm acknowledged those problems exist, but said "those who are registered to work legally will receive good welfare, like the universal health care scheme, and taken care of."

Andy Hall, a staunch migrant advocate and researcher at the Institute for Population and Social Research at Thailand's Mahidol University, said far more needed to be done to stop exploitation.

"Policy is one thing, but reality is different," he said. "The reality is that migrants are discriminated against and exploited. They're treated as second-class citizens with no status. It needs to change."

In theory, every child has the right to go to school in Thailand — even the children of migrants, Hall said. But there is little or no budget for them, the schools are full, and "the law is not enforced."

Those without prWe are professional canada goose jackets for women online sale shop.oper Thai papers faced shakedowns from Thai authorities, and even the legal process of obtaining a Myanmar passport in Thailand is clouded by mass corruption.

Thailand used to have an almost ad hoc system of registration which allowed abuses but also a certain amount of flexibility. But two years ago, it implemented a new policy to formalize the legal status of migrant workers, forcing them to have their identities verified by their home countries and be issued temporary passports under a so-called Nationality Verification process.

St. Louis battle over solar panels pits

Energy costs are rising. Hiscox is increasingly concerned about the environment. And government rebates could help him fund the $45,000 cost.

But his building, the Soulard Bastille Bar on Russell Boulevard south of downtown, has a roof that faces the street.We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design And that means his solar array would break neighborhood rules. Soulard,It's pretty cool but our ssolarpanel are made much faster than this. a national historic district, does not allow visible panels.

"I'm just sick to my stomach," Hiscox said. "I don't get this."

Hiscox's heartache highlights a fight simmering from coast to coast.

How does a historic neighborhood hang onto that certain je ne sais quoi and still change with the times? How does it ooze history and romance, and still find space for solar panels and satellite dishes?

"Nationally, they've been dealing with it a lot, in historic districts in New Jersey, California, across the nation," said Ryan Reed, a preservation specialist with the Landmarks Association of St. Louis, which fights to save historic structures.

But no one, Reed said, has produced guidelines that make all parties happy.

Soulard is one of the oldest sections of the city. Its 150-year-old homes, perky mansard roofs and redbrick rows invite visitors to meander the streets — and boost property values across the neighborhood.

If the rooflines get broken by enough new gadgets, nearly all parties agree, the feel of Soulard might change.

"Think of it like a puzzle," Reed continued. "If you're missing so many pieces, you can't tell what the picture is."

The problem, said St. Louis architectural historian Michael Allen, is that many historic guidelines were written 40 years ago. The city's three oldest historic preservation districts — Hyde Park, Lafayette Square and Soulard — were created in the 1970s, Allen said, with strict rules to prevent bad business signs, cheap windows, rooftop decks and backyard lean-tos.

"They weren't hoping to keep out solar panels,Wireless real realtimelocationsystem utlilizing wifi access points to pinpoint position of the tag." he said. "They were guidelines for their future. Now those aspirations have been realized."

Are rain barrels and solar panels, he asked, corrupting neighborhood standards? Historic guidelines, Allen said, need to be revised.

This is far from the first time an area business has tried to incorporate new technology into historic renovation.

The city's Cultural Resources Office has approved solar panels before — though only when they're hidden, or nearly so.

Washington University successfully petitioned the city Preservation Board, which hears preliminary reviews, borderline cases and appeals on such issues, to mount 6-foot-tall wind turbines on the top of its three-story building on Delmar Boulevard in the Skinker-DeBalivere Historic District.

And rehabbers are constantly at odds with local and state guidelines over window replacements.

Just this past month, Alderman Jennifer Florida complained that a project in her ward, south of Tower Grove Park, couldn't put in double-paned vinyl windows, despite their energy efficiency. State historic tax credit guidelines called for wooden windows — but replacing the originals with double-paned wood was, she said, prohibitively expensive.

"You're ultimately adapting a 110-year-old structure for today's use," she said. "But energy efficiency should be non-negotiable."

"We have these old ways of doing things," she continued.

Even Betsy Bradley, director of the Cultural Resources Office, says it might be time to review Soulard's regulations. The city's ordinance says the standards should be rewritten every 10 years. Soulard's have not been revised since 1991.

That, however, would be too late for Hiscox. This month,The core of an indoor positioning system. he lost the first round in his fight to sidestep the historic guidelines. The city's preservation board voted 4-2 against his request.

Hiscox tried to show that the solar panels wouldn't offend anyone. He offered to put up six temporary panels prior to any permanent construction. He got 14 pages of signatures from neighbors.

But Bradley denied the temporary demonstration. She said she wanted to help Hiscox but could find no mechanism for permitting the temporary erection of such items.

And the Preservation Board sided with the Soulard Restoration Group, which wrote the guidelines and opposed the panels. Bradley, in her report to the board, noted that the surrounding buildings were historic, that Hiscox's panels would be "entirely visible" and that Russell was an important thoroughfare into Soulard.

Approving the project, she concluded, "would indicate that the visibility of solar collectors in a historic district is not a concern. The Soulard Historic District Standards, in several ways, indicate that a visually dominant solar panel installation on a street-facing public facade is not compatible with the historic character of the district."

Hiscox readily acknowledges that it's not just about going green. The Bastille has a walk-in cooler, four compressors, air conditioning and electric heat. He said his electric bill runs from $500 to about $1,800 per month.

"It's rough out here," he said.Exhaust ventilationsystem work by depressurizing the building. "I was just trying to save money and have some fun. So much for that."

Hiscox says he has already spent $6,500 for a new, black roof to match the anticipated solar panels (though he needed the new roof anyway), plus $15,000 in early panel costs, which he is hoping to recoup. One of the solar panels, he said, is still sitting in his kitchen.

"To say the least," he continued, "I won't be spending too much more money in the neighborhood."

Advocates and city leaders don't expect this problem to go away soon.

But they do think it will change. Technology will reduce the size of solar panels — there are already shingle-size cells out in some communities. And perceptions will adapt, too.

2012年5月29日 星期二

Facebook To Buy Opera? Rumored Deal Could Cost Social Network Over $1 Billion

Facebook is under pressure to make money from the increasing number of users who access the social networking site from mobiles, making Norway's Opera a good fit for it, bankers familiar with the technology industry said.

Shares in the mobile browser maker soared by as much as 26 percent on Tuesday. Tech blogs reported recently that it was in the sights of Facebook, which was criticized at the time of its $100 billion initial public offering for failing to have an effective mobile advertising strategy.

Opera's Internet browser optimizes surfing on mobiles, which can be a slow and painful experience especially on more basic phones, and is especially popular in emerging markets.

Bankers said the company had long been up for sale informally but they ruled out rival interest from the likes of Google and Yahoo in the short term.

"The company has been available for a long time.Silicone moldmaking Rubber, Informally it is for sale," one of the bankers said. "And Facebook wants to buy its way into the emerging markets."

Another source familiar with the matter said it was unclear whether interest from third parties would ultimately result in closer partnerships or an outright takeover of Opera.

"Opera is attracting growing interest as mobile becomes more strategic for Internet companies, but there is no ‘For Sale' sign up over the company," the source said.

Opera currently benefits from partnerships with multiple companies including Google, which would be threatened by a takeover from a powerful rival such as Facebook.

"It's a classic challenge for a company like this. They're like the Switzerland of mobile. Someone would have to derive meaningful value to take them off of that independent path," the sources said.

Facebook shares slid to a new low on Tuesday at just above $30,Ekahau rtls is the only Wi-Fi based real time location system solution that operates on any brand or generation of Wi-Fi network. extending a losing streak since its controversial and glitch-ridden market debut on May 18.

Facebook is approaching saturation point in the developed world and says its next billion users will come from countries such as India and Nigeria.

Because many people in those markets own simple phones and do not have access to app stores, it is important for Facebook to make the experience of accessing the site through a Web browser as painless as possible.

Its chief technology officer, Bret Taylor, said in February that Facebook would lend its weight to a push for better Web standards that would enable more apps to be delivered via a simple Internet browser, instead of going through Apple and Google stores.

"On paper (a Facebook-Opera combination) is a good story. Opera's browser is used in feature phones, not smartphones, mainly in the emerging markets," a second banker said.

Opera, which has about 200 million subscribers to its Mobile and Mini services, has built a significant share in major emerging markets such as India and Brazil, which are strategic growth markets for Facebook.

The Norwegian company would be such a perfect fit for Facebook that the U.S. company would have to pay a hefty premium, analysts said.

DNB, Norway's top bank, said the price would have to be double Friday's closing level, or 68.6 crowns, valuing Opera at $1.35 billion.Welcome to polishedtiles. Danske Bank and ABG Sundal Collier both predicted a price between 50 and 60 crowns a share,This page contains information about tooling. or $1 billion to $1.2 billion.

"Opera would be sensible for Facebook on several levels," Arctic Securities said.

"It would enhance the now limited mobile experience of Facebook, improve Facebook's mobile monetization problem, help Facebook retain online game developers leaving the social network over the lack of a mobile platform and further improve Facebook's ability to target ads."

Opera makes various Web browsers that work across an array of platforms including mobile phones, tablets,Why does mouldengineeringsolution grow in homes or buildings? PCs and TVs.

The software is available on most phones, including Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry, and works on various operating systems, including Google's Android, giving Opera the reach Facebook is seeking.

The browser can compress data by as much as 90 percent, saving consumers on data charges, and has the technology to better display ads, a significant factor for Facebook which has struggled to convert its rapidly increasing traffic from mobile platforms to revenue.

Rotomolders told to keep up with technology

In the industrial world, computers have changed everything from quoting to new product development to having a consultant fix a problem over Skype, and rotational molders need to keep pace, according to speakers at a Society of Plastics Engineers conference.

Held May 6-9, the SPE Rotational Molding Division’s conference drew about 120 people to Cleveland,Features useful information about glassmosaic tiles, said program Chairman Barry Aubrey, a technical service representative with resin distributor Nexeo Solutions LLC of The Woodlands, Texas.

The market for goods has become the entire world, said Jeff Herwig, who works in new business development at Lakeland Mold Co. in Brainerd, Minn. “And yet as the world gets larger, it also appears to get smaller and moves very quickly,” he said. “Product development is now occurring on a worldwide basis, making it much more important to act quickly, because the rate of change isn’t going to slow down any time soon. If anything, competition in most industries and most countries is going to speed up even more.”

Coming up with a quote used to take seven to 10 days, as the part design and quote had to be typed up and mailed back and forth. Fax cut the time down to three or four days. Today it takes just one or two days, thanks to email.Ekahau rtls is the only Wi-Fi based real time location system solution that operates on any brand or generation of Wi-Fi network.

Toyota’s model of early collaboration between members of the supply chain, together with computer-aided design, rapid modeling of three-dimensional parts and process-simulation software have slashed the time needed for product development, Herwig said.

Herwig gave some examples of the global supply chain, where an automotive aftermarket part was designed it Italy for an OEM in the United Kingdom, and the part was molded in China using U.S.-made tooling. In the past it would take 18-24 months to set up this type of far-flung supply chain, where now it takes nine months from design concepts to part production, he said.

Sandy Scaccia, president of Norstar Aluminum Molds Inc. in Cedarburg, Wis., said the RotoSim simulation software is now in its 12th revision. Even though process simulation has been around for several years, he noted rotomolding still lags injection molding, blow molding and vacuum forming in its use.

RotoSim can help product designers get the correct wall thickness in the right areas of a part, which is a critical dimension, Scaccia said. It also can show the impact on a part of enhanced cooling, or the right mixture of cooling,TRT (UK) has been investigating and producing solutions for indoortracking since 2000. air or water.

”It’s a pretty good picture of what’s going on in the cycle,” he said.

Dave Mulligan has become a “virtual consultant” since he retired as president of Roto Plastics Corp. in Adrian, Mich. That means at his new consulting company, Turn-About-LLC, he can help solve processing problems without leaving his office, by using things like email, cell-phone videos sent from the factory floor and screen captures.

“We’ve already got the basis for a virtual presence in any plant, anywhere,” he said. “Everybody’s got a camera hanging from their belt, or in their pocket.”

Using Skype, Mulligan can give a seminar, take a plant tour, get a close-up of a mold or view entire production cycles to spot problems.

Mulligan said it beats airports and rental cars: “The customer doesn’t want to wait for me.Professional Manufacturer for ceramictile.CMI moulding sells to retailers, He wants answers right now.”

Iran victim of another cyberattack

A Russian-based internet security firm says a powerful computer virus with unprecedented data-snatching capabilities has attacked machines in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Iran has not disclosed any damage done by the new spyware virus, dubbed "Flame." Its origin has not been identified, but Israel's vice premier fueled speculation that his country, known for its technological innovation and tireless campaign against Iran's suspect nuclear program, unleashed it.

Russian digital security provider Kaspersky Lab,Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and porcelaintiles. which identified the virus, said in a release posted on its website late Monday that "the complexity and functionality of the newly discovered malicious program exceed those of all other cyber menaces known to date."

It said preliminary findings suggest the virus has been active since March 2010, but eluded detection because of its "extreme complexity" and the fact that only selected computers are being targeted. Flame's primary purpose, it said, "appears to be cyber espionage, by stealing information from infected machines" and sending it to servers across the world.

According to Kaspersky,Silicone moldmaking Rubber, the virus collected information not only in Iran, but also in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Sudan,At Blow mouldengineering we specialize in conceptual prototype design. Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Iran, however, was far and away the country most affected, it said.

A unit of the Iranian communications and information technology ministry said only that it has produced an antivirus capable of identifying and removing the new malware. The Flame virus is the fourth known cyber attack on Iranian computer systems.

Comments Tuesday by Israel's vice premier did little to deflect suspicion about possible Israeli involvement in the latest attack.

"Whoever sees the Iranian threat as a significant threat is likely to take various steps, including these, to hobble it," Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon told Army Radio. "Israel is blessed with high technology, and we boast tools that open all sorts of opportunities for us."

Israel, like the West, rejects Tehran's claims that its nuclear program is designed to produce energy, not bombs. It considers Iran to be the greatest threat to its survival and repeatedly, if obliquely, threatened to attack Iran's nuclear facilities if Tehran doesn't abandon its uranium enrichment project, a key element of bomb making.

Because Flame is so complex, was not designed to hack into bank accounts and doesn't have the hallmarks of amateur hackers, Kaspersky has concluded that the research that went into the code was government-sponsored.

The code offers no information that can tie Flame to any specific country, Kaspersky said in its release,Grey Pneumatic is a world supplier of impactsockets for the heavy duty, but a company agent in Israel said "you could more or less put your finger on any Western nation."

There is no indication of what kind of material it stole, but "we know that the computers that were infected were computers with very sensitive information" because the virus can be modified to mine whatever information is sought, added Ilan Froimovici, technical director at Power Communications, Kaspersky's representative in Israel.

Evidence suggests the same programmers were behind both Flame and Stuxnet, a virus that disrupted controls of some nuclear centrifuges in Iran in 2010, Froimovici said. The centrifuges are devices used in enriching uranium.

The two codes "use the same vulnerabilities in the operating system and the computer infrastructure in order to infect the computer system. We do believe that the same programmers built the two codes," he said.

Udi Mokady, CEO of Cyber-Ark, an Israeli developer of information security, said he thought four countries, in no particular order, have the technological know-how to develop so sophisticated a cyber offensive: Israel, the U.S.TBC help you confidently buymosaic from factories in China., China and Russia.

"It was 20 times more sophisticated than Stuxnet," with thousands of lines of code that took a large team, ample funding and months, if not years, to develop, he said.

"It's a live program that communicates back to its master. It asks, where should I go? What should I do now? It's really almost like a science fiction movie."

Iran claims Stuxnet and other computer viruses have done no serious harm to Iran's nuclear or industrial facilities, and sees them as part of a campaign by Israel, the U.S. and their allies, which includes the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, to undermine the Iranian nuclear program.

Marubeni buys Gavilon

Marubeni buys Gavilon for $3.What you should know about stone mosaic.6 billion as it eyes China

In the latest development to challenge the longstanding dominance of global grain giants like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, Marubeni confirmed its biggest-ever acquisition. It unites Gavilon's huge U.We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds designS. network of grain elevators and infrastructure - the country's third-largest - with a powerful global trading desk that already supplies a fifth of China's soybeans imports.

Marubeni said the acquisition will nearly double its grain trading volumes, extending an already wide lead over its Japanese rivals as it bets big that China's demand for imported corn will continue to surge ahead, surpassing Japan's 16 million metric tons (17.6 million tons) a year of imports in as little as three years.

"It's a move to complete a grains-supply chain of elevators, export terminals, freight handling and an end-user market, and the target is the growing market of China," said Akio Shibata, president of the Natural Resource Research Institute in Tokyo.

The U.S. grain trader has about $2 billion in debt, Marubeni said, which would take the total value of the transaction to $5.6 billion - slightly higher than the $5.2 billion price tag that had been reported in recent months. The acquisition would be partly financed by bank borrowing, the Japanese firm added.

The announcement confirmed an earlier Reuters report.

The deal is also a comeback of sorts for Dwight Anderson, whose Ospraie hedge fund was one of the most high-profile victims of the 2008 commodities collapse. He led a deal to buy ConAgra's trading division - renamed Gavilon - for about $2.8 billion including debt in early 2008, alongside investor George Soros and General Atlantic, a $17 billion private equity fund.

It is the largest overseas acquisition, including debt, in agriculture or energy by a Japanese company since Japan Tobacco bought British cigarette manufacturer Gallaher Group for almost $19 billion in 2006, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Marubeni, Japan's fifth-largest trading company, had been in advanced talks to buy Gavilon since early May. Gavilon is the largest transaction in Marubeni's history, the company said.

The company said it had no plans to sell off parts of Gavilon's operations, which also include a major U.S. fertilizer distribution network and a mid-sized energy trading desk that includes crude oil and natural gas storage facilities.

Those areas each comprise about a fifth of Gavilon's earnings, but were not seen by analysts as a particularly good fit with Marubeni's ambition in the agricultural markets.

Marubeni expects its global grain handling to rise to 55 million metric tons in the year to March 2013, when it adds Gavilon's 30 million metric tons to its business, coming closer in size to global grain giants like Cargill, Daisuke Okada, an adviser on food products to Marubeni President Teruo Asada, said at a briefing in Tokyo.

"We expect U.S. grains will fill future supply gaps in corn and other grains in China as output growth there may slow due to problems including water shortages," Okada said.

The company also said it expected the acquisition to lift its bottom line by more than $100 million from next year.

Acquiring Gavilon may help the trading house challenge Archer Daniels Midland as the biggest supplier of grains and oilseeds from the United States to China.Find everything you need to know about kidneystone including causes,

Thanks to its longstanding ownership of a large West Coast export terminal, Columbia Grain, and its 2008 deal to buy a set of northern elevators from AGP Grain, Marubeni's export business has boomed in recent years. A strategic pact with top grains importer Sinograin has helped open the conduit to China.

"This acquisition supports an ongoing strategic plan by Asian grain importers to better secure future grain needs via the merger and acquisition process," said grains analyst Mike Zuzolo of Global Commodity Analytics. "Realizing that better supply-chain management should better prepare these importers in their global sourcing needs."

Japan's trading houses, or "sogo shosha", have been scooping up assets around the world, targeting everything from shale gas to copper, as the world's third-largest economy competes with China, the second-biggest, for resources.

They're not alone. Swiss-based Glencore made its biggest leap into the grains market this year with a $6 billion agreed bid for Canada's top handlers Viterra.

But investors don't seem to be counting on further deals in a sector where the four biggest firms - ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus, nick-named the "ABCD" - have built a sizeable lead over decades. Shares in The Andersons, a mid-sized trader and ethanol producer, are barely higher than they were early this year, when the deals first surfaced.

Gavilon is the third-biggest U.S. grain merchant with about 320 million bushels of storage capacity in the United States, just behind Cargill and ADM but ahead of global grain giants like Bunge and Louis Dreyfus.

"As part of a larger trading organization,Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and porcelaintiles. Gavilon will be well-positioned to more efficiently connect supply with growing global demand,Professional Manufacturer for ceramictile." Gavilon President and Chief Executive Officer Greg Heckman said in a statement.

Marubeni's acquisition of Gavilon is unlikely to face any pushback from farmers and agricultural businesses, which have long been accustomed to the presence of Japanese grain companies in the United States.

"We anticipate minimal changes to our organization and operations," Heckman said.

A combination of Marubeni and Gavilon is seen by analysts as a good commercial fit, marrying Gavilon's presence in the U.S. Central Plains and Midwest with Marubeni's operations in the Pacific Northwest - the shortest U.S. sea route to Asia.

Morgan Stanley is advising the U.S. company on the transaction, Gavilon said. Nomura is advising Marubeni, people involved in the discussions have said.

Marubeni's rivals Mitsui & Co and Mitsubishi Corp had both been seen as potential bidders for Gavilon but decided not to pursue a deal.

2012年5月28日 星期一

Mapping 'Urbicide' in World War II

The more removed we get from World War II, the more important it becomes to remember the war that shaped the modern world, and yet the harder it becomes to find fresh angles of remembrance. In a recent issue of the Journal of Historical Geography,We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design researchers David Fedman of Stanford and Cary Karacas of CUNY-Staten Island present visual evidence of the systematic destruction of 65 Japanese cities by U.S. military bombers — a process of "urbicide" they call "one of the most striking gaps in ... U.S. public consciousness regarding the major events of World War II."

Shortly after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the American military mobilized several units of mapmakers that ultimately played a central role in the planning of air assaults on Japanese cities. The Map Division of the Office of Strategic Services alone produced some 8,000 maps throughout the conflict. In their work, Fedman and Karacas use this wartime cartography to show how U.S. bombing of Japanese cities shifted from military targets to urban populations in general after 1943.

Ten of these maps,It's pretty cool but our ssolarpanel are made much faster than this. which are in the public domain,Ekahau rtls is the only Wi-Fi based real time location system solution that operates on any brand or generation of Wi-Fi network. are reproduced in the gallery below.

"Considered together, these maps reflect the evolution of American military strategy, and the eventual embrace of incendiary air raids on entire cities," Fedman and Karacas told Atlantic Cities in a joint email response. "As we spent more time with these maps, and began to consider the ways in which they strip urban space of its humanity, it occurred to us that they also stand as remarkable artifacts of — and windows into — total war."

As the war progressed, U.S. military maps were desensitized in a way that reflected a broader need to dehumanize the enemy. While maps are impersonal by nature, they nonetheless often convey very personal elements of a place: street names, government buildings, school zones, and the like. When the situation required, American military cartographers replaced the civilian, non-combatant markings of Japanese cities with the industrial sites and factory workers that represented a war machine deserving of destruction.

Fedman and Karacas believe the so-called "urbicide" of Japan has been overlooked, for starters, because the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki capture such a large share of American memory when it comes to incendiary raids. The intentional bombing of cities also creates what they describe as "unsettling moral questions" that are difficult to square with simplistic notions of the Good War. But it's precisely the complexity of global conflict — philosophical and practical alike — that stands as an enduring lesson of World War II.

"The key takeaway from our article, we hope, is that the abstraction of enemy space is part and parcel of modern warfare,This is a really pretty round stonemosaic votive that has been covered with vintage china ." Fedman and Karacas said. "In hindsight it is perhaps tempting to suggest that these mapmakers bear a share of responsibility for the burning of Japanese cities,We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design but its important to realize that they, like so many other Americans, were simply doing their job, as was demanded by total war."

Strife sours peace at Esalen

The world-famous Esalen Institute hasn't seen this much controversy since a psychic was hired in 1979 to contact extraterrestrials for advice on reorganizing management. Now,This page is an introduction to 35 pages of material on mathematical magiccubes. as Esalen marks its 50th anniversary, veterans of the New Age retreat center best known for massages, self-awareness and naked hot-tubbing say a new crisis has emerged: a corporate philosophy bent on making money and turning the institute into a boutique-style spa.

"We've lost sight of what this place was founded for," said Bill Herr, who has been connected with Esalen for two decades and is now the director of its art center.

The controversy comes at a time when the institute is striving to maintain its identity, relevance and bottom line — long after its pioneering achievements have gone mainstream: yoga classes at the YMCA, massages at the mall, organic food at Walmart.

Tensions reached a boiling point last month when three beloved midlevel managers were abruptly laid off as part of a "restructuring." The widow of one of the two co-founders as well as an Esalen board member resigned in protest. A son of one founder and a nephew of another worry about Esalen's legacy. And every day at 1 p.m., a defiant group — sometimes as many as 70 people — gather in a silent "circle of honor" to mourn the loss of the laid-off co-workers.

"It's been a bloodbath in ways as the old school has met the new," said David Schiffman,We are the largest producer of projectorlamp products here. 69, who has led "vision quests" and workshops at Esalen for 43 years. He recently decided to stop singing and drumming at the "spirit calling and purification" ceremonies on a deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

"I didn't want to be fiddling while Rome burned," Schiffman said. "I couldn't imagine playing music in a place where people were having the music squeezed out of them."

Founded by Michael Murphy and Dick Price in 1962, Esalen quickly became a symbol of California's hippie counterculture, attracting the music and pop psychology icons of the day — from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez to Timothy Leary, Fritz Perls and Abraham Maslow, whose "hierarchy of needs" became required college reading.

In the 1970s, Murphy's "Golf in the Kingdom" became a best-seller. And in the '80s, Esalen became known for "hot tub diplomacy" when it tried to play a role in easing Cold War tensions by hosting Soviet diplomats on tours of America, including then-Moscow Mayor Boris Yeltsin, and meetings with their U.S. counterparts.

"In its day, Esalen was the TED Talks and Burning Man all rolled into one," said David Price, general manager from 1995 to 2003 and son of co-founder Dick Price, who died when he was crushed by a Big Sur boulder in 1985. "I just don't see it as having that level of impact right now. To me, it's a shame."

And while the current strife "looks like a management vs. labor kind of dispute,Buy high quality bedding and bed linen from Yorkshire Linen." said the art center's Herr, "what's really going on is a kind of cultural assault."

But Esalen President Gordon Wheeler and board member Bill James say Esalen remains a vibrant place where for the past eight years — many of those recessionary years — it has welcomed record numbers of guests to sex and marriage sessions, organic farming seminars, human potential workshops and leadership conferences.

Still, Wheeler said, "it is true we have to have more emphasis on accountability and job effectiveness than we used to.Rubiks cubepuzzle. We're a nonprofit. We do need to break even. The pressures for that are greater than they used to be, for sure."

The controversy has been made all the more painful and intense, he said, by the isolation of the institute 45 miles down the rocky coastline from Monterey — and the fact that about 100 employees live on the property and feel as close as family. Many participate in the "work/study" program, living on the property, doing housekeeping or working in the garden and kitchen, as well as joining groups of stocking-feet workshop guests in meditation and other self-help seminars.

The recent changes have been especially difficult for those who go back decades.Ekahau rtls is the only Wi-Fi based real time location system solution that operates on any brand or generation of Wi-Fi network. Like most companies, James said, Esalen employees now must log their hours and explain overtime — which to old-timers "smacks of not being trusted." And after a recent incident in which a busy, exasperated kitchen employee refused to make a birthday cake for a guest, James said, employees were encouraged to "smile and nod" at guests as they pass them along the dirt pathways.

Catholics celebrate milestone in sainthood bid

If a group of local Catholics have a say in the matter, the late Archbishop George (Jurgis) Matulaitis could soon join the saintly ranks of Michael the archangel, Joan of Arc and John the Baptist. All they need is a miracle.

About 250 people gathered at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church on Sunday afternoon to mark the 25th anniversary of the year the Lithuanian priest moved one step closer to being considered a saint by the Catholic Church.

Pope John Paul II declared Matulaitis "blessed" in June 1987 after the Catholic Church found a miracle associated with his name.

Now, supporters of Matulaitis hope someone else will come forward with a miracle he or she experienced after praying to God, using Matulaitis as an intermediary. If a second miracle is found and approved by Catholic authorities,UK chickencoop Specialist. then Matulaitis could be considered a saint.

"If it is the will of God, we hope very soon that he can (attain) sainthood," Joseph Roesch, the vicar general of the Marian Fathers of Immaculate Conception, who oversees a Lithuanian parish, told the audience at Blessed Virgin Mary.

Achieving sainthood in the Catholic Church is a difficult endeavor that can last years after a person's death, priests at the Nativity celebration said. First, a candidate's legacy and character have to be researched to prove that he or she lived a holy life.

Then church officials must find two cases where someone experienced a miracle after praying to God using the candidate's name. The miracles are often medical in nature, but church officials will verify with doctors that there is no other natural or scientific explanation for the miracle.

In Matulaitis' case, a Lithuanian woman said she received instantaneous healing from varicose veins after she prayed to God with a prayer card attached to her leg featuring Matulaitis.

"The healing came from God," Roesch said. "(But) for us it's the saints, that are the intercessors."

Matulaitis, who was born in 1871 and died in 1927, had bone tuberculosis and wore a leg brace for much of his life, priests said. He visited Chicago's Lithuanian community, but he spent his life in the Eastern European nation.

Matulaitis, who was an orphan, paid much attention to parentless children during his ministry, said Kaz Chwalek, provincial superior of the Marian Fathers of Immaculate Conception, who was there at his beatification 25 years ago.

Some of his other accomplishments included rebuilding a religious order and continuing in ministry at a time when political upheaval in Lithuania made the work of Catholic churches difficult, Chwalek said.

Nativity parishioners on Sunday dedicated a mosaic made of glass,You can create a beautiful chinamosaic birdhouse that will last for generations. enamel and granite in honor of the priest. The mosaic, about the size of two textbooks, depicts the priest with a slight smile and a white and blue halo glow radiating behind him. His white hair barely creeps out from under his red hat, and a gold cross dangles from his neck.

The artist, Ada Sutkus, 80, said the mosaic took about six weeks to put together.Excel Mould is a Custom Plastic injectionmoulding Maker. The hardest part was getting the contours of his face and gold cross, she said.

"I prayed so hard because once you put that piece there, it stays there," Sutkus said.

Still, Sutkus, who was born in Lithuania,Rubiks cubepuzzle. said honoring the life of Matulaitis was worth her donated time and money.

"I read his biography and I was so deeply moved, Sutkus said. "He was a diplomat."

Cardinal Francis George said in a speech during the Nativity celebration that Matulaitis' service fulfilled a great need in the Catholic Church.

"We need a witness to radical discipleship,Distributes and manufactures rubbermats." George said. "(Someone) to give up everything to do the work of God in a radical way. He knew that ... and we are grateful."

2012年5月24日 星期四

‘Rapid Deployment’ Challenges Radio

In his first appearance before attendees as the executive vice president and chief technology officer of NAB, Kevin Gage challenged engineers to gaze beyond the traditional broadcast horizon and seek out technology to connect with consumers more closely. “We’re operating in an environment of rapid deployment and constant development,” said Gage, who warned broadcasters to become proactive and “take the lead, or someone else will.”

Meanwhile, C-Net Editor-at-Large Brian Cooley calls the age we’re living in the “post-PC” era, with smartphones,3rd minigame series of magiccube! tablets, connected TVs and connected cars the hot gadgets, at least for the near future. Connected cars are on his top 10 list for tech, behind connected TVs and the smartphone. He characterizes the latter as the “main computing device for the world.”

Seventy percent of new cars have connected dashboards. The days of putting in “a CD deck with AM/FM and HD and you’re fine” are over, warned Cooley.

Several events at and after NAB renewed attention on broadcaster efforts to encourage the use of FM chips in mobile devices.

Research in Motion introduced the BlackBerry Curve 9320 smartphone, which includes built-in FM radio, its third model with FM this year. NAB released a study that it says shows the chip issue is gaining traction among consumers.CMI moulding sells to retailers, A meeting on Capitol Hill in April delved in FM chips; broadcast participants say they were left hopeful.

“This is the start of a process,” Emmis Communications CEO Jeff Smulyan told Radio World.About 1 in 5 people in the UK have recurring coldsores.

Rep.You can create a beautiful chinamosaic birdhouse that will last for generations. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., called for the private meeting with members of the broadcast, cable and wireless industries. He chairs the House Subcommittee on Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Communications.Find everything you need to know about kidneystone including causes, NAB’s Gordon Smith, Florida Association of Broadcasters’ Pat Roberts, Clear Channel’s Jeff Littlejohn, Cris Guttman-McCabe of CTIA-the wireless Association and congressional staffers attended, as did a representative of the cable industry.

AT&T and Verizon were invited but didn’t come; however they are members of CTIA, which was present.

Smulyan and a NAB spokesman made clear the chip discussions don’t center on a mandate. They believe events will shake out with a negotiated settlement among industry parties. Smulyan, iBiquity Digital and NAB have pressed carriers for a while on the issue. Carriers repeatedly have said consumers aren’t interested in the feature.

“We are asking cell carriers to voluntarily add or activate radio chips, in part because of radio’s demonstrated role as a lifeline service in times of emergency,” said an NAB spokesman.

Broadcasters now believe they have more to offer carriers, after the announcement at the NAB Show of a smaller, more power-efficient HD Radio chip and radio’s ability to close the so-called “backchannel” (see below).

“I think if the carriers realize they can offload some of the spectrum use onto us, that’s valuable to them,” Smulyan said.

NAB and Smulyan said this issue is the number one radio priority for the association.

More discussions are expected, possibly including congressional hearings. Bilirakis plans more meetings on the topic. Smulyan said broadcasters have been approached by the House and Senate Commerce Committees, as well as the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee.

A poll fielded by Harris Interactive for NAB indicates that four out of five adults who own a cellphone would consider paying a small, one-time fee to hear FM on their device. Two thousand survey participants were asked about a fee of 30 cents, estimated cost of a microchip.

Eighty-one percent of cellphone owners would consider paying that to access local FM stations through a device, compared to 76 percent in a similar survey in 2012.

Local weather and music are the top reasons survey participants would listen to their local stations on their cell phones.

A, B, C of Local Economy

Since the adoption of the multiple currencies, there was considerable improvement in the economic climate which saw inflation plummeting from 231 million at the last official count in June 2008 to single- digit levels (below 5 percent).

However, the economy is failing to significantly move from stabilisation to remarkable growth. To shed light on how the economy is expected to perform in the next four years, a discussion of macroeconomic fundamentals like income per capita, current account, foreign direct investments, national debt, general performance of selected sectors of the economic and infrastructure will be reviewed.

Income per capita is average household income. Capita income is often used as a measure of the wealth of the nation's households of a nation. It can be used to compare nations' well-being.

Income per capita fell drastically as a result of pervasive economic collapse. Income per capita fell from around US$900 in 2001 to around US$400 in 2008. Although it began to peak up from 2009 it is growing at a sluggish rate. For the next four years, income per capita is expected to reach US$700 in 2016.

Low incomes can have two-pronged effect on the local industry. Firstly, because incomes are low, there is naturally low demand and companies' sales are low. Secondly, low incomes results in low and transitory savings which makes it difficult for local banks to give local industry long term loans.

As a result of low incomes coupled with liquidity challenges have made it virtually almost impossible for local companies to raise production capacities to competitive levels. On average capacity utilisation is in the neighbourhood of 47 percent.Trade organization for suppliers and distributors in the promotional products industry.

Zimbabwe companies cannot compete with foreign companies.Stone Source offers a variety of Natural stonemosaic Tiles, As a result, Zimbabwe has become a retail economy.

Regional comparison reveals that Zimbabwe compares well with Malawi, Madagascar and Mozambique. Income per capita is far below its major trading partners like South Africa and Botswana by more than 10 times such.Visit TE online for all of your Application tooling Solutions including tools, Its northern trading partner, Zambia, is favourably doing well.

An economy with weak incomes will certainly see its households consuming more of basic commodities at the expense of other commodities due to constrained optimisation. Because of low capacity utilisation, Zimbabwean products have been uncompetitive in the regional markets. Local companies as a result cannot therefore exploit market access created through trade liberalisation. And, there is no sign that this can be reversed!

Current account is the sum of the balance of trade that is exports minus imports. A current account surplus increases a country's net foreign assets by the corresponding amount.Offers Art Reproductions Fine Art oilpaintings Reproduction, On the other hand, current account deficit decreases the country's net foreign assets by the same amount.

Since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe's trade performance was poor as exhibited by current account deficit which dominated the period under review. Zimbabwe managed to register positive current account in 1988, 1997, 1998 and 1999 only. Going forward, the future is very bleak as the country is expected to realise a continuous increase in current account deficits up to 2016 unless there is a positive shock in the economy. According to the World Bank, Zimbabwe is number 133 in world rankings Current Account Balance (US Dollars) performance in year 2010.

The development of the negative current account is worrisome for a country which virtually imports 100 percent of its fuel, 40 percent electricity, essential drugs and equipment for industrial re-tooling.

Zimbabwe thus remains susceptible to the vagaries of the adverse external macroeconomic environment, particularly within the aegis of the multiple currency system which is typified by limited macroeconomic policy instruments.

Because of the multi-currency system, the country has virtually lost monetary policy autonomy,Rubiks cubepuzzle. making it difficult for the country to intervene with appropriate stimulus packages in the event of exogenous shocks. As a result of the absence of adequate foreign exchange reserve buffers to respond to exogenous shocks due to negative current account, the economy is in a bad state.

Higher education shouldn’t be an impossible dream

Marysville-Pilchuck High School will graduate the class of 2012 on June 11. Marysville Getchell follows on the 13th. I have no idea who has been chosen to speak at the ceremonies but for graduation speakers across the nation, it’s going to be a challenge this year. I’ve been bothered by the question, what would I say if called upon to speak?

My past gave little help. I have no recollection who it was or what he said, other than it was more of what I’d heard for years. The world is eager to welcome you. Opportunity beckons. You are limited only by the limits of your imagination.

It was true. Businesses hired like crazy in those days. My best friend hired on at Spokane’s Brown Trailers for an inflation-adjusted wage of $13.44 per hour. The United States had emerged from WWII as the only nation with factories intact while most other countries’ plants had been bombed to pieces. We weren’t just one nation indivisible. We were one nation incomparable!

Anyone anteing up about $100 in tuition was accepted by a state university. With prices like that, who needed student loans? My wife and I built a 2,200-square-foot home in Marysville for $17,500. Inflation helped us to double our $108 per month payments to retire the mortgage in 15 years. Numbers like that colored a graduate’s view of the future.

Those golden years spawned a myth that unlimited opportunity and economic growth defined America and were the birthright of generations to come. The myth infected history books, political rhetoric and personal expectations. And graduation speeches. But the myth-driven notion that our system is self-correcting and that everything works out fine if left alone came unglued. College tuition became unaffordable while industry couldn’t find enough educated employees.

War-ravaged nations managed to put themselves together again.Find everything you need to know about kidneystones including causes, Some with our help. While U.S. industry chugged on with WWII-style tooling, emerging economies combined the latest tooling with cheap labor. Industry by industry, American producers found themselves lagging in competitiveness. By 1965 foreigners were catching up and passing us. By 1980 they dominated manufacture of products ranging from shoes to hats and tractors to electronics. Our slice of the pie was narrowing which helped account for flat wages while costs of everything,The core of an indoor positioning system. including education, continued to grow.

At some point, speakers might switch their focus from graduates to the audience. Since a large part of the class of 2012 is college-bound, how to get there and stay there is a big issue of our times. Granted, Washington state has some top-quality universities but their cost has risen beyond the means of average American families.

Our higher education system may not be broken but it is certainly bent in the direction of not serving the state and nation’s needs. In its unaffordability, it compares with the astronomical cost of industrial gold stalling production of high-tech circuitry. Society isn’t being served when qualified applicants are denied entry because they can’t afford the tuition or don’t fit within schools’ quota of incoming freshmen. Meanwhile, Boeing is forever complaining that it can’t find enough educated job applicants.

The way China adjusted during the period of 1999 to 2009 was to increase its number of universities from 1,We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design071 to 2,305. In the same period,What you should know about stone mosaic. Chinese undergrad and vo-tech enrollment jumped more than 400 percent. Speakers might remind graduates that politicians dodge such issues because they’re either too expensive or too grim to charm voters.

So speakers might say to audiences, “You can’t give up because the state dropped the ball. You can’t sideline your children’s potential because a short-sighted nation gave higher education such a low priority. It is up to you to prove once again that if you need to be sure something gets done, you have to do it yourself.”

Families can’t wait for government to make education affordable. While brilliance and inspiring resumes might earn scholarships, most students have found it necessary to take out student loans ranging from $25,000 for a Liberal Arts degree to $140,000 for Medicine. Imagine leaving a university burdened by that much debt. I won’t let my grandchildren suffer that.

Dads, moms, uncles, aunts, grandparents and siblings of university-bound students should have sit-down meetings to hammer out a financial plan. That package includes not only financial commitment but hopes and prayers of family that give extra motivational boost to a student’s efforts.Welcome to the online guide for do-it-yourself Ceramic tile. Aside from the super-rich, university education needs to be a family affair. It’s an investment that helps to assure independence and purpose and done right, everyone benefits.

2012年5月22日 星期二

Fishbourne Roman Palace remains full of wonders five decades on

Having the largest set of stunning Roman mosaics in the country, there’s little wonder Fishbourne Roman Palace continues to enthral visitors five decades on from its initial excavation.

Making sense of around 200,000 fascinating items of ancient pottery, bones and metalwork within its collection is a task clearly demanding a high degree of professional skill.

It’s something curator Dr Rob Symmons finds exceptionally challenging, yet rewarding in being surprised by new archaeological treasures consistently emerging from this remarkable site.

Though we are uncertain of the palace’s original owner, many believe it could well have been built for British tribal chief Togidubnus, who would have been a powerful ally in the early phases of British conquest in the 1st century AD.

Many historians state the site’s development, with its opulent gardens, solid stone construction and lavisSave up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and porcelaintiles.hly decorated mosaic floors was a classic marker of imperial superiority.

While its fortunes eventually waned as the Romans withdrew from our shores, its legacy thankfully remains, having been skilfully excavated during the 1960s.

As Dr Symmons shows me round the extensive collections discovery centre at the centre of its conservation mission, it is clear there’s plenty of passion being put into its operation.

“The palace is unique. Its date and size make it special, as do the stories it tells about what is a significant period in our history. That’s what makes it so important.

“It was excavated by Barry Cunliffe who did a fine job,Home ownership options with buy mosaic. but things have moved on in terms of techniques after 50 years. It is great to have the archive we’ve got which we are now able to revisit,” explains Dr Symmons, who has previously worked at the Natural History Museum.

By his own admission, it takes something of an obsession with detail to successfully carry out such meticulous work.

Praising his ‘tenacious’ cataloguing colleagues for their efforts (which began several years ago and are not due for completion until the end of 2016), he explains that even a fleeting examination of its finds reveals plenty about what life really was like 2,000 years ago. The curator motions me towards several banks of painstakingly archived material.

Among the assortment lies the femur bone of a sheep, which tells a story in its own right.Buy high quality bedding and bed linen from Yorkshire Linen. On inspection, we can see how the animal met its end at the hands of a Roman soldier, who used a very specific carving technique favoured by the military, demonstrating the army’s definite presence within the area.

Following this, I set eyes on what is probably among the most mysterious items – a small, slightly sinister metal figurine with a distinctive face. According to Dr Symmons, it is in fact one of only several examples of an early Roman voodoo doll.

“I got into archeology not for a love of exact dates, more because I wanted to find out about how people lived, that’s what interests me.

“We are privileged to work every day with around 3,000 crates containing our history.The core of an indoor positioning system. We do this because we love it – there are real rewards working in conservation, but they are not financial.”

Overseeing the site’s 30 staff is the responsibility of director Jaane Rowehl, who has enjoyed an eventful first year in her post.

While there are clearly plenty of pressures in maintaining and enhancing facilities, she is anticipating an extremely busy summer period ahead.

“It has been fantastic for me here. The recession affecting tourism is a great challenge for us,Find rubberhose companies from India. so I’ve had to learn very fast how to manage the site in order to make the best use of resources.

“But it has been good fun with having TV’s Hairy Bikers down here so I got my first screen appearance. However, there have been less exciting times, with moments such as seeing our cafe operators going bankrupt and having to find a replacement for them.”

USF researchers question safety of widespread lawn spray

Two USF biologists published a study last year showing that a popular spray fungicide wiped out the frog population in their research tanks.

They followed up last week with a study that produced findings even more disturbing.

The chemical, chlorothalonil, affected every creature in the tanks, knocking their environment out of balance.

"Some species were able to recover from the chemical assault, but the ecosystem was fundamentally changed after its exposure to chlorothalonil," said Jason Rohr, co-author of the study published in the journal Ecology Letters.

Overall, fewer species were left behind and they were less capable of decomposing waste, he said.

In short, the water was sickly.

It's hard to say how this may harm humans, Rohr said. It's the first study looking at the system-wide effects of chlorothalonil, sold under the names Bravo, Echo and Daconil and used widely across Florida farm fields, lawns and golf courses.

But it raises a warning, said co-author and USF biologist Taegan McMahon.

"I would love to see EPA re-evaluate the safety of chlorothalonil," she said.

The chemical, in the same family as the banned DDT, kills molds and fungus by disrupting a process known as cellular respiration, which is essential to nearly all forms of life.

It's one of the last organochlorines regulated for use in the United States, Europe and Australia, Rohr said.

Its wide use is why he and McMahon began studying it several years ago, along with herbicides and pesticides, such as atrazine.

Chlorothalonil is usually applied in a spray form. It's heavily regulated because inhaling it can be toxic and if handled improperly it can severely irritate skin and eyes.

Rohr and and McMahon looked at what happens when it collects after rain or irrigation washes it off a field or lawn.

The chemical is hard to study in real life. The researchers could never get permission to spray it themselves as a farmer would, McMahon said. So in 2008 they set up several 300-gallon tanks on a field in Wimauma and filled them with water to mimic pond conditions.

They dosed the water with chlorothalonil, using mixtures based on a federal calculation of how much of the chemical a farmer would use and how much would be expected to run off into a nearby body of water.

One of the first things they noticed was that the tadpoles started dying.

"It basically wiped out all of the amphibians," McMahon said.

She and Rohr published that result last year in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Then they turned to the fate of the snails, crayfish, water plants and other creatures in the tanks, including the tiniest floating organisms. Most of them died,An airpurifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air. too, which freed the algae to grow into lethal, oxygen-hogging blooms.

Life eventually returned to the tanks but many of the species had been destroyed.

A plant and animal community can handle the destruction of some species because many play redundant roles in maintaining the community, Rohr said.

But "chlorothalonil killed enough species to alter the function and services the ecosystem provided," he said.We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design

This is one of the first studies to attribute such environmental changes to a human cause,Industrialisierung des werkzeugbaus. he said.

Syngenta, a Swiss-based biotechnology company that makes seed and chemicals,Wireless real realtimelocationsystem utlilizing wifi access points to pinpoint position of the tag. including Bravo and Daconil, has challenged the results of the USF studies.

"We stand by the safety of chlorothalonil, a fungicide that has been used for more than 40 years. It is a critical tool for farmers protecting more than 65 crops – including potatoes, vegetable crops, turfgrass, ornamental plants, peanuts, and other fruit and nut crops – from 125 diseases caused by mold and fungus," spokeswoman Ann Bryan wrote in a statement last week.

Also, she said, the concentrations the researchers used are not "ecologically relevant," because they were "significantly higher than what would ever be found in the real world.Trade organization for suppliers and distributors in the promotional products industry."

Cable Industry Look To 'Millennials' To Sustain Video Business

For cable companies looking for ways to sustain growth in their maturing U.S. video businesses, young consumers like Diana Guay Dixon may become the industry's biggest problem yet.

Annoyed by a costly monthly cable bill driven up by sports channels she didn't watch, Dixon, 29 years old, canceled her cable subscription with Cox Communications Inc. earlier this year. She and her husband still rely on Cox for landline phone and broadband service, but they now watch their favorite shows and movies through subscriptions to Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and Hulu Plus.

"Once I realized that Netflix and Hulu Plus combined were cheaper than cable,We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design it was a no-brainer," Dixon said in an interview over email. Hulu is owned by a consortium of investors including News Corp.CMI moulding sells to retailers, (NWS, NWSA), which owns this newswire.

Dixon is at the upper-end of the so-called "millennial" generation of viewers broadly defined as those born between 1983 and 1997. Cable operators are looking for new ways to reach such tech-saavy and budget-minded consumers like Dixon before they leave home and consider "cutting the cord."

The industry's efforts include launching local, high-school sports TV channels; promoting young-adult reality shows; and customizing monthly bills for roommates. While millennials are likely to opt for low-cost services from cable companies, they are poised to become the industry's most lucrative subscribers as they start their own families and grow their earnings power.

"They are worth less now but [they] will ultimately become our best customers if we treat them right," said Peter Stern, chief strategy officer at Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC).

Cable operators already face real hurdles to growing their video-subscription businesses, where they have lost millions of video customers in recent years, due in part to rival services like Verizon Wireless's FiOS service or AT&T's (T) U-Verse.

And while there's little definitive evidence that cable operators are already losing subscribers to cord-cutting, research suggests it will become a bigger problem for the industry going forward.Posts with Hospital rtls on IT Solutions blog covering Technology in the Classroom,

A survey by Deloitte earlier this year found that 19% of young millennials were considering canceling their paid-TV service on the premise that they could watch all of their favorite shows online for free--a sentiment shared by only 7% of their parents. More than a third of millennials said they had watched a favorite show in the past six months over a free Internet site, a percentage twice as high as their parents.

Comcast Corp.Silicone moldmaking Rubber, (CMCSA, CMCSK), which is the country's largest cable operator by subscribers, has in recent years sought out new young subscribers through marketing efforts like giving away packing boxes and laptop sleeves at large universities.

In addition to promoting services through contests advertised on Facebook Inc. (FB),Stone Source offers a variety of Natural stonemosaic Tiles, the Philadelphia-based company also has promoted original-content series like "Jump Shipp," a reality TV series about avoiding the pitfalls of an unsatisfying first job and a "quarter-life crisis," produced by Halogen TV.

Millennials "are the sweet spot of what media is trying to reach," said Marcien Jenckes, a senior vice president at Comcast who heads the company's video division. "We have to go to school on the ways consumers expect to get their content."

Meanwhile, Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC) has launched a local high-school sports and school events network, "MSG Varsity," aimed at attracting millennial viewers at 600 high schools in its service areas. Coverage on "MSG Varsity," the name reflects Cablevision's ties to Madison Square Garden Co. (MSG), includes school games, academic events and other student-produced content.

Rather than focus on content and marketing efforts, Time Warner Cable is experimenting with new ways to charge and service budget-minded millennial consumers. Those efforts include seeking ways to split a monthly cable bill between multiple roommates, offer lower-priced service for budget-conscious viewers and provide pre-wired service in college apartments.

The major cable operators point to their efforts to expand over-the-top viewing options as a response to the millennial generation's increased demand for mobile and Web-based viewing access.

A consortium of big cable companies including Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision Monday announced a new agreement through which they share access to around 50,000 wireless hotspots. Comcast also introduced new services Tuesday for its Xfinity voice subscribers that allow them to make calls and texts over wireless data networks at home and at wi-fi hotspots for free.

Cablevision, meanwhile, has aggressively rolled out its offering of on-demand video and "TV To Go" services that allow subscribers to access content on Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Xbox, tablets and other devices.

Earlier this year, Comcast and Walt Disney Co. (DIS) struck a wide-ranging deal allowing Comcast to lock in prices and distribute Disney brands, including ABC Family and the Disney Channel on box tops and over-the-top devices.

2012年5月20日 星期日

If an Afghan solution was this easy

The article identifies the threats to Pakistan’s security as emanating from: (i) terrorism sponsored by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, particularly the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA); (ii) India’s massive defence spending; (iii) undermining of Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities; and (iv) the US/Nato presence in Afghanistan,Welcome to polishedtiles. and the turmoil in that country.

Of these the writer believes that the threat from Al-Qaeda can be neutralised through focused Pakistan-US cooperation, but far more formidable is the danger from the TTP the BLA. He claims that “there is compelling evidence” that both outfits are being supported by Indian and Afghan intelligence, and perhaps even by the US and some unspecified Western countries. Similar views have been expressed time and again by Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who also described the terrorists who attacked the PNS Mehran base in Karachi last year as resembling characters from Star Wars.

The allocation to defence in the Indian budget which was presented to parliament in mid-March by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is undoubtedly alarming. Military spending has been increased by 17 percent, or $38.6 billion.What you should know about stone mosaic. A huge $17.5 billion have been earmarked for capital expenditure for the acquisition of state-of-the art equipment. India, which already has a nuclear triad, is upgrading 51 Mirage fighter jets, finalising a $20 billion accord with France for buying 126 Rafale multirole combat aircraft and is negotiating with the US for purchasing 145 ultra-light howitzers and has bought 49 new warships for its navy.

The spirited writer of the article recommends that Pakistan should “acquire conventional capabilities to neutralise the Indian build-up at a much lower cost” from China, secure the latest technologies “by any means,” acquire a second-strike capability and nuclear submarines. But Pakistan does not have the money to pay for such acquisitions unless, of course, Merlin waves his magic wand to generate the finances from the comatose and haemorrhaging economy which, according to a recent World Bank estimate, is losing a whopping Rs400 billion annually from power outages alone.

On Afghanistan the article is emphatic that there must be a complete withdrawal of US troops as even a token American military presence will prolong the conflict and dangerously polarise the country along north-south ethnic fault-lines. The writer assumes that Pakistan still has sufficient influence in Afghanistan “to bring about the orderly, honourable but full withdrawal of US-Nato forces.”

The proposal is probably embedded in the unrealistic assumption that the 350,000-strong Afghan National Army,I found them to have sharp edges where the injectionmoldes came together while production. which is disproportionately dominated by the Tajik ethnic minority, will be able to withstand the anticipated Taliban onslaught against the corrupt and discredited regime in Kabul after the withdrawal of US/Nato forces in 2014. The chaos will have disastrous consequences for Pakistan and is likely to spur the inflow of around two million refugees into the country, which it cannot sustain.

The possibility of a post-2014 Afghan ethnic conflict, unparalleled in its intensity, cannot be brushed aside. But President Hamid Karzai seems to be dwelling in an ethereal world of illusions. On Sunday he triumphantly announced the commencement of the third phase in the transfer of security control from Nato to the Afghan army. His spokesman,Wireless real realtimelocationsystem utlilizing wifi access points to pinpoint position of the tag. Aimal Faizi, told journalists at a hastily convened media briefing: “Eleven provinces will be transitioned in the handover, including Kapisa, Uruzgan and Parvan. Seventy-five percent of the population will come under the control of local security.” Currently French troops are stationed in Kapisa and their Australian counterparts are based in Uruzgan.

Within hours of the announcement a key negotiator in Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, Maulvi Arasala Rehmani, was assassinated in Kabul. Rehmani,We are professional canada goose jackets for women online sale shop. a former foreign minister in the Taliban regime, was also a close associate of the Afghan president. Earlier this month, the Taliban had threatened to target members of the Peace Council but its spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahed, denied any involvement in the killing.

Earlier, the Karzai regime had claimed that with the completion of the first two phases in the transfer of operational control from Nato troops to its forces, 50 percent of the population, including Kabul, were being effectively provided security by the Afghan army. This was belied by the multiple Taliban attacks on April 15 on Western embassies, Nato headquarters and the parliament building in Kabul. These were synchronised with assaults in Jalalabad and Logar and Paktia provinces, as well as with the storming of the central jail in Bannu by the TTP. This should leave little doubt that the Afghan Taliban and their Pakistani equivalent are two sides of the same coin.

Wassenberg Art Center exhibits, classes, lunch programs and summer camps

Multiple programs continue at the Wasesnberg Art Center and the paintings continue to arrive at a steady pace for our first 30 x 30 Art Fundraiser. As they parade by it's impossible to not get excited at the vast array of colors and technique. I for one am going to be hard-pressed trying to pick one (or two or three).

This fundraiser is helping purchase supplies for our expanded summer camps and sorely needed equipment such as a clay extruder, slab-roller and repairing our kilns. Thirty original paintings donated by 30 artists will go on sale June 1 & 2 at this year's ArtRageous Festival for the mere cost of...you guessed it, $30!

They will go on display on May 20 on our website, Facebook, and here at the art center. After that they will be placed at our booth during ArtRageous, located in Fountain Park, Van Wert. Where else can you invest $30 in original art by professional artists who typically sell their work for hundreds or thousands of dollars? 30 x 30 supports our summer camp by purchasing supplies and much needed equipment.This page is an introduction to 35 pages of material on mathematical magiccubes.

We still have openings in those art camps, but they are going fast. Register early to guarantee your child's spot as space is limited. Our new Lunch & Learn programs are a great way to get your work team out of the office for a short time for an interesting presentation or quick project. As the name indicates we'll feed you too!

Regular classes for both adults and youth are also available at very reasonable rates. Oil painting, drawing, ceramics and a multitude of one-night classes featuring unique, fun projects Give us a call, email or check our website and we'll get you all fixed up.

Deadline for artists to submit their artwork for our 56th Annual June Art Exhibit is this Saturday and Sunday, May 19 & 20. Artwork will be accepted from 1-5 p.m. on those days. Please contact us at the number/email below if you need an entry form. The 56th Annual June Art Exhibit runs from June 9-June 29 and it will debut in grand style with a public reception BBQ, craft beer and wine tasting.Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and porcelaintiles. In addition to artist award presentations we'll celebrate with live music by the Reese Dailey Band! RDB is made up of Dailey, drummer Chuck Mauk,The all New Bluetooth Reader BT1000 features a handsfreeaccess. bass Dan Langguth and rhythm/lead guitarist/vocalist Mike Cleveland and together make up a pivotal group of American musicians whose uncompromising style firmly states their Erie-Midwest flatlands identity. Reese Dailey Band is Lake Erie's Put-in-Bay favorite and commands any stage throughout Ohio and beyond.The concept of indoorpositioningsystem (RTLS) is fast catching up in industries. Reese,The all New Bluetooth Reader BT1000 features a handsfreeaccess. a dynamic guitarist with a seemingly endless flow of lyrical leads combined with his deep, rich vocals is able to produce a sound that holds listeners attention. This band's combined work includes openings for national bands, solo concerts and a couple members have provided music for movies and television. The band's first CD was released July 2011, (Olympia Records). Like our regional artists, this band is top notch. We are fortunate to represent high end, quality arts right here, in our own neck of the woods and we hope to see you here celebrating. Thank you to our sponsors, they rock! Van Wert Federal Savings Bank, Cooper Farms, and the Van Wert County Foundation, Collin's Fine Foods and Walmart.

Advantages & Disadvantages of floor types

Of all the decisions you must make in your home the material you chose for your kitchen floor might be one of the most the most difficult. We will look at the pluses and minuses of each floor covering so you can make an informed choice.An airpurifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air.

A quality glazed ceramic tile with a glossy finish is always a good choice when looking for a floor covering that is durable and elegant. A ceramic tile floor can take a tremendous physical beating and will last for years. The choice of styles, shapes, patterns and grout colors are seemingly endless. There is some debate over the quality of tiles. Trust your local home improvement contractor to point you in the right direction. A well-installed tile floor adds elegance and value to a home.

However,Buy high quality bedding and bed linen from Yorkshire Linen. grout lines can be a nightmare with small children. Even when sealed, a spilled glass of juice can permanently stain the grout. Food and crumbs can lodge in the grout making cleaning difficult. Also, a glass jar that slipped through little hands does not stand a chance on a hard tile surface and will certainly break. Installation for the first time do-it-yourselfer can be difficult but not impossible. All the tools and information necessary are readily available and home improvement centers and tile outlets. It can be quite difficult to remove a tile floor for the next remodeling so choose carefully.

Sheet goods are trade talk for one large piece of flooring material be it vinyl, linoleum, etc. A template is made of the entire area and the sheet is cut to size. The material is held down with glue around the perimeter and select spots in the field. Sheet goods are almost maintenance free. They clean very easily and are almost waterproof. Perfect for kids too as they are very stain resistant, offer a softer cushion when junior drops the pickle jar and quite easy to clean with a damp mop. They come in a tremendous array of designs and styles. Easy to remove for you’re next remodeling project.
However,You can create a beautiful chinamosaic birdhouse that will last for generations. many people dislike the fake-looking patterns and commercial look of linoleum. I have found the surface to be slippery and might pose a slip-hazard to the elderly. Sheet goods do not withstand physical punishment as well and a chair or table leg can leave a permanent indentation and are susceptible to tears from a dropped knife.

Very easy for homeowners to install themselves with little tools or experience required. Individual tiles are lower in price and have lower installation costs. There are a tremendous variety of colors and styles available with new ones hitting the market almost every day. They are easy to maintain, clean, and offer a more forgiving surface for the kids than ceramic tile. Easy to remove if you have changed your mind about the color or pattern.Like sheet goods, the individual tile floor is not very durable and is susceptible to mars, dents and cuts. The self-adhesive tiles tend to come unglued over time. The many seams allow water to seep in between. Subsurface must be perfectly smooth or the tile might take the shape of the imperfection below.

The laminated wood floor is the new kid on the block. It makes for a wonderful, soft homey feel in a kitchen. A fine compliment to cabinets. Easy for the do-it-yourselfer to install with a minimum of tools and experience. Warmer than tile in the winter and foam backer makes for a softer landing. Surface virtually impenetrable and clean up is a snap.Usually found in a bedroom or hallway, the jury is still out as far as this product in a kitchen. Standing water can seep between the seams and wreak havoc with the wood underlay. Many people complain the pattern repeats too often and looks phony. The slippery surface can pose a danger.

Cork is a surprising new arrival on the kitchen floor scene. It is not your bulletin board cork laid on the floor but the product of a high-tech process that produces a great looking floor covering that is quite unique. Minimal seams add to ease of cleaning and prevent water seepage. Cork is forgiving surface for dropped china. Unlike wood, cork comes in limited styles and colors.What are hemorrhoids? Because it is new on the market, many contractors do not carry it and its rarity increases the price. Long term durability has not been tested.

Yes cement. Through innovative processes that allow for reduced weight and flexibility, concrete has turned up in new places. Poured concrete on a kitchen floor is a real conversation starter. Colors and patters abound. Through the use of aggregate (stones) and a grinding process, along with dyes and shaping forms, the design
flexibility is almost limitless. Durability and water resistance is obviously very good. Concrete should be considered a high-end product and few contractors have the expertise to install it. Rock-hard surface is deadly on fine china. If you chose concrete, make sure you select very carefully because tearing up a concrete floor can be a big, expensive job.Visit TE online for all of your Application tooling Solutions including tools,