Art is an integral part of the Dogwood Arts Festival. This year the festival adds video and performance art to its April offerings.
Most Friday and Saturday nights in April will see video art played against the brick background of the south side of the William F. Conley Building on Gay Street. Local artist Tarrer Pace will create the work called "Illumine" using words and graphic design and colors high up on the building wall. Dogwood Executive Director Lisa Duncan describes "Illumine" as the festival's "first light sculpture."
The video art will be projected from two projectors set across the Krutch Park Extension from the Holston Building. "Illumine" will show 8:30-10 p.m. April 6, April 13-14, April 20-21 and April 27.
Other performance art has been added to this year's festival. And this work is hot — literally.
Sculptor Allen Peterson will lead an iron casting demonstration and "Iron Pour" performance event April 14 at the University of Tennessee Gardens off Neyland Drive. Peterson is the juror for the festival's 2012 Art in Public Places exhibit.
Peterson, who is an instructor at Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta, will work with members of the UT Sculpture Club on the presentation. The event includes an opportunity for the public to create their own cast iron tiles, followed by an iron pouring performance by Peterson called "Colony."
The iron tile casting is 2-6 p.m. April 14; cost is $10 per tile, said UT Professor of Art Jason Brown. The performance aspect of the iron pour will begin after dusk. Then, Peterson will pour hot iron into molds of large bees. Those bees will then be held up by iron rods into the air, creating an iron-bee style of dance. There is no charge to watch the iron pouring and "Colony" creation and performance.
Hot glass will be the medium April 20 and 21 as glass artist and 2003 Bearden High School graduate Cody Nicely demonstrates glass blowing. Nicely's demonstrations will be 10 a.m.-5 p.m. both days at Liz-Beth & Co, 9211 Park West Blvd.
2012年3月31日星期六
2012年3月30日星期五
Software 'cloud' helps molders monitor production
Cloud computing is not just a buzzword for a molder’s tech services department. It is also for molders that want to get the most out of their presses in day-to-day production.
“[The cloud] removes the barriers that were there because of computer hardware [limitations] and makes it so that you can study more things,” said Bob Williams, product marketing manager for software company Autodesk Inc. (Booth 49009). “There were all of these things that could have been done in simulation before, but nobody had the time or the computer space.”
Autodesk’s Moldflow analysis has been a go-to resource for companies designing molds and new products. By creating simulations, those firms can make sure the geometry and material flow will work in production. But Williams said Moldflow’s potential has been much greater than that. The capabilities exist for adding details about press size, melt temperatures and cycle time — right alongside its more familiar use for testing complexity in part and mold development.
The problem, traditionally, is that all that information took up a lot of space on a computer’s hard drive, and companies had to prioritize and ration their use of Moldflow. The cloud changes that, Williams said.
Cloud computing has been around for a while, but recently it has received greater attention and emphasis. Apple Inc., through consumer advertising, has brought wider recognition to the cloud and cloud-based services for storing and accessing music, photos, videos and apps — such as its iCloud.
The cloud itself, however, is not simply an Apple creation, nor as ephemeral as the white fluffy things floating in the sky. Cloud computing is a phrase to describe off-site data storage locations — or server farms – which holds massive amounts of files for everything from email to highly detailed renderings of complex parts, Williams said. Users then access that information from anywhere with a wired or wireless connection, using anything from a smart phone to a desktop computer.
What this means for Moldflow users is that they no longer need to have all of the schematics and geometry and software loaded onto their own hard drives. Instead, using a secure log-on, a mold designer could set up a program with all the data needed, but the intensive calculations are done at a remote server, keeping their own systems free to run other programs.
Autodesk began offering the cloud for its Inventor level of Moldflow 18 months ago, and expanded it to its more complex full Moldflow simulations in late 2011.
“What we’ve seen is people are uploading gigantic models that their local computers couldn’t handle,” Williams said. “They may have 10 to 20 different variations that they’re looking at, and running it all at the same time, where before they would have had to do one after another on their computer.”
Users also are discovering the availability a cloud-based Moldflow analysis has on picking the right press size to use, the correct pressure and cycle time. They can run simulations that will check what tweaking one gating alternative would make in manufacturing the part, then use that information to see which presses are the best for that parts – or even if they have the right presses on the floor to bid for a part in the first place.
“[The cloud] removes the barriers that were there because of computer hardware [limitations] and makes it so that you can study more things,” said Bob Williams, product marketing manager for software company Autodesk Inc. (Booth 49009). “There were all of these things that could have been done in simulation before, but nobody had the time or the computer space.”
Autodesk’s Moldflow analysis has been a go-to resource for companies designing molds and new products. By creating simulations, those firms can make sure the geometry and material flow will work in production. But Williams said Moldflow’s potential has been much greater than that. The capabilities exist for adding details about press size, melt temperatures and cycle time — right alongside its more familiar use for testing complexity in part and mold development.
The problem, traditionally, is that all that information took up a lot of space on a computer’s hard drive, and companies had to prioritize and ration their use of Moldflow. The cloud changes that, Williams said.
Cloud computing has been around for a while, but recently it has received greater attention and emphasis. Apple Inc., through consumer advertising, has brought wider recognition to the cloud and cloud-based services for storing and accessing music, photos, videos and apps — such as its iCloud.
The cloud itself, however, is not simply an Apple creation, nor as ephemeral as the white fluffy things floating in the sky. Cloud computing is a phrase to describe off-site data storage locations — or server farms – which holds massive amounts of files for everything from email to highly detailed renderings of complex parts, Williams said. Users then access that information from anywhere with a wired or wireless connection, using anything from a smart phone to a desktop computer.
What this means for Moldflow users is that they no longer need to have all of the schematics and geometry and software loaded onto their own hard drives. Instead, using a secure log-on, a mold designer could set up a program with all the data needed, but the intensive calculations are done at a remote server, keeping their own systems free to run other programs.
Autodesk began offering the cloud for its Inventor level of Moldflow 18 months ago, and expanded it to its more complex full Moldflow simulations in late 2011.
“What we’ve seen is people are uploading gigantic models that their local computers couldn’t handle,” Williams said. “They may have 10 to 20 different variations that they’re looking at, and running it all at the same time, where before they would have had to do one after another on their computer.”
Users also are discovering the availability a cloud-based Moldflow analysis has on picking the right press size to use, the correct pressure and cycle time. They can run simulations that will check what tweaking one gating alternative would make in manufacturing the part, then use that information to see which presses are the best for that parts – or even if they have the right presses on the floor to bid for a part in the first place.
2012年3月29日星期四
Air sampling shows elevated level of mold in auditorium at Southview High building
Air monitoring has shown a high level of mold in the water-damaged auditorium of Southview High School.
The testing conducted by Emerald Environmental Inc., detected 57,000 traces per cubic meter of penicillium/aspergillus mold near the auditorium’s seating. The average for a “clean commercial” building is 600 fungal structures per cubic meter of air sampled, the report states.
The stage of the auditorium registered 20,000 structures per cubic meter of the same type of mold.
People who are sensitive to molds may experience stuffiness, eye irritation, wheezing and skin irritation when exposed to it, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Exposure to large amounts of mold could cause fever, shortness of breath and fungal infections in the lungs in some instances.
Chief Operations Officer Daniel J. DeNicola stated in a memo to Interim Superintendent Ed Branham that the level of mold was “comparable to outdoor environments during high pollen/hair fever season.”
Beginning next school year, the building is expected to become the temporary high school, while the new high school is being built.
Students will not be permitted in the building until the mold issue has been dealt with, said Tim Williams, school board president.
“Until the building is at what is by code acceptable, there won’t be any occupancy,” he said. “There will be no compromise on health or safety. That is our expectation of all of our buildings.”
The mold growth came about due to a leaky roof over the auditorium and a power failure, the report states.
School officials placed caution tape at the auditorium doors to keep people out while the testing was done. Officials have repeatedly described the auditorium and neighboring “music wing” as the most troubled part of the building.
The testing conducted by Emerald Environmental Inc., detected 57,000 traces per cubic meter of penicillium/aspergillus mold near the auditorium’s seating. The average for a “clean commercial” building is 600 fungal structures per cubic meter of air sampled, the report states.
The stage of the auditorium registered 20,000 structures per cubic meter of the same type of mold.
People who are sensitive to molds may experience stuffiness, eye irritation, wheezing and skin irritation when exposed to it, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Exposure to large amounts of mold could cause fever, shortness of breath and fungal infections in the lungs in some instances.
Chief Operations Officer Daniel J. DeNicola stated in a memo to Interim Superintendent Ed Branham that the level of mold was “comparable to outdoor environments during high pollen/hair fever season.”
Beginning next school year, the building is expected to become the temporary high school, while the new high school is being built.
Students will not be permitted in the building until the mold issue has been dealt with, said Tim Williams, school board president.
“Until the building is at what is by code acceptable, there won’t be any occupancy,” he said. “There will be no compromise on health or safety. That is our expectation of all of our buildings.”
The mold growth came about due to a leaky roof over the auditorium and a power failure, the report states.
School officials placed caution tape at the auditorium doors to keep people out while the testing was done. Officials have repeatedly described the auditorium and neighboring “music wing” as the most troubled part of the building.
2012年3月28日星期三
A loft with room for inspiration
Leafing through a 1960s shelter magazine recently, Linnea Gits landed on a piece about shibumi, a Japanese aesthetic. She tacked a list of its seven qualities to the chunky cork mood board inside the River West loft she shares with partner Peter Dunham, as a distillation of the values they have always lived and designed by: simplicity, implicitness, modesty, silence, naturalness, everydayness and imperfection.
Those principles influence every object — custom furniture, tabletop accessories, limited-edition prints — that the couple create for their almost 2-year-old design company Uusi. That sensibility also permeates the 2,500-square-foot live/work space that they gutted and rebuilt starting in 1996, in an industrial building once occupied by a furniture company.
A woodworker and furniture-maker, Dunham executed most of the rehab, with artful unconventionality. There is no living room, formal or otherwise. "One of these days we will get a sofa," Gits said with a laugh. The master bedroom occupies a sliver of the 2,500 square feet of second-floor space they lease, which affords a sprawling art studio and corner office. Dunham's wood shop stretches across 5,000 square feet in the basement.
Nonetheless, the interior feels warm and inviting in its cross between commercial and personal, spare and collected.
"Spaces are so emotional," said Gits, who focuses on graphic art, design and illustration. "They are sanctuaries, but they need enough tension to be inspirational."
"They also need to be functional," Dunham said, seated at the dark wood dining/conference table he built and topped with white laminate, both for appealing contrast and a neutral background for product photography.
Uusi — pronounced OO-see — means "new" in Finnish. But much of the freshness here comes from the couple's vintage objects. An edited selection of Springerle cookie molds dating to the 1800s (which they have baked with) and Japanese Kokeshi dolls adorn floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Another holds Danish craftsman Kay Bojesen's bulbous wood animals, some of which Gits' mother gave to her as a child. They informed a series of decorative wood animal figures Uusi produced for Design Within Reach stores.
"As a child, I never wanted to play with the (Bojesen figurines), but I liked looking at them and imagining what world they were from," Gits said. "It's those things that are so crazy-weird that feed you and stick with you longer."
"They start something," Dunham said.
Painted Benjamin Moore Atrium white, original plaster walls adjoin new drywall where rooms were reconfigured. The floors are plywood transformed with custom finishes. Dunham stained the kitchen ones white, suggesting marble when sunshine floods through two skylights.
Above the kitchen sink is a wooden, wall-mounted knife block, an Uusi best-seller (and one purchased by Alinea chef Grant Achatz). "It's an example of something that looks so simple to make," Dunham said, but isn't.
Dunham and Gits remodeled the kitchen three years ago, replacing cabinetry above the counter with a long shelf for easy access to dinnerware and Dunham's vintage Belgian beer glasses. They kept the Tappan stove, inherited from Dunham's grandmother.
The shelf, and the lower cabinetry, bears a thick veneer of cypress, from staves Dunham salvaged from water towers across Chicago. The rings of the wood repeat along the shelf and lower cabinetry like the eddies of a pond across which a stone has skipped.
"This wood is anywhere from 300 to a thousand years old," Dunham said. "It's like some kind of fossil gem. You cut into these pieces, and you never know what you're going to see."
He has re-purposed cypress and redwood staves for commercial and personal purposes. Most recently, he shaped a paper-thin flitch into a lampshade that bathes his desk in warm, coppery light if he is working in the wee hours, as the couple are wont and able to do.
They do sleep, Gits assured. A full-size bed covered in a Missoni spread accommodates Gits (who is 5 feet 10 inches tall), Dunham and occasionally their two cats.
"Four years ago we were replacing our mattress, and I was so freaked by how big they had gotten, with 5 miles of pillow top. We just wanted a firm mattress. The store had purposely put this one on a Soviet-era bed," Gits said, smiling. "We're going to sound really Spartan! We're not unsensual people."
Those principles influence every object — custom furniture, tabletop accessories, limited-edition prints — that the couple create for their almost 2-year-old design company Uusi. That sensibility also permeates the 2,500-square-foot live/work space that they gutted and rebuilt starting in 1996, in an industrial building once occupied by a furniture company.
A woodworker and furniture-maker, Dunham executed most of the rehab, with artful unconventionality. There is no living room, formal or otherwise. "One of these days we will get a sofa," Gits said with a laugh. The master bedroom occupies a sliver of the 2,500 square feet of second-floor space they lease, which affords a sprawling art studio and corner office. Dunham's wood shop stretches across 5,000 square feet in the basement.
Nonetheless, the interior feels warm and inviting in its cross between commercial and personal, spare and collected.
"Spaces are so emotional," said Gits, who focuses on graphic art, design and illustration. "They are sanctuaries, but they need enough tension to be inspirational."
"They also need to be functional," Dunham said, seated at the dark wood dining/conference table he built and topped with white laminate, both for appealing contrast and a neutral background for product photography.
Uusi — pronounced OO-see — means "new" in Finnish. But much of the freshness here comes from the couple's vintage objects. An edited selection of Springerle cookie molds dating to the 1800s (which they have baked with) and Japanese Kokeshi dolls adorn floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Another holds Danish craftsman Kay Bojesen's bulbous wood animals, some of which Gits' mother gave to her as a child. They informed a series of decorative wood animal figures Uusi produced for Design Within Reach stores.
"As a child, I never wanted to play with the (Bojesen figurines), but I liked looking at them and imagining what world they were from," Gits said. "It's those things that are so crazy-weird that feed you and stick with you longer."
"They start something," Dunham said.
Painted Benjamin Moore Atrium white, original plaster walls adjoin new drywall where rooms were reconfigured. The floors are plywood transformed with custom finishes. Dunham stained the kitchen ones white, suggesting marble when sunshine floods through two skylights.
Above the kitchen sink is a wooden, wall-mounted knife block, an Uusi best-seller (and one purchased by Alinea chef Grant Achatz). "It's an example of something that looks so simple to make," Dunham said, but isn't.
Dunham and Gits remodeled the kitchen three years ago, replacing cabinetry above the counter with a long shelf for easy access to dinnerware and Dunham's vintage Belgian beer glasses. They kept the Tappan stove, inherited from Dunham's grandmother.
The shelf, and the lower cabinetry, bears a thick veneer of cypress, from staves Dunham salvaged from water towers across Chicago. The rings of the wood repeat along the shelf and lower cabinetry like the eddies of a pond across which a stone has skipped.
"This wood is anywhere from 300 to a thousand years old," Dunham said. "It's like some kind of fossil gem. You cut into these pieces, and you never know what you're going to see."
He has re-purposed cypress and redwood staves for commercial and personal purposes. Most recently, he shaped a paper-thin flitch into a lampshade that bathes his desk in warm, coppery light if he is working in the wee hours, as the couple are wont and able to do.
They do sleep, Gits assured. A full-size bed covered in a Missoni spread accommodates Gits (who is 5 feet 10 inches tall), Dunham and occasionally their two cats.
"Four years ago we were replacing our mattress, and I was so freaked by how big they had gotten, with 5 miles of pillow top. We just wanted a firm mattress. The store had purposely put this one on a Soviet-era bed," Gits said, smiling. "We're going to sound really Spartan! We're not unsensual people."
2012年3月27日星期二
N.J. sign maker returns to repair Dentzel sign he crafted
Matt BeneduceMcGrath runs his fingertips across the green Smalts glass that acts as the background to the Dentzel Carousel sign he designed and built 11 years ago.
“This is my best piece of work that I’ve ever done,” said the 55-year-old Logansport native who has been in town since late last week to touch up the sign. “This is my favorite.”
BeneduceMcGrath, who has made a living as a sign maker in New Jersey for about three decades, designed and helped build the 12-foot-by-5-foot, 600-pound sign with wooden trim and letters made of urethane.
He remembered the nine months it took him, a mechanical engineer, licensed electricians and a civil engineer to put it all together. The Cass County Dentzel Carousel board hired BeneduceMcGrath to come back and touch it up.
“Weather takes its toll,” he said, as the sign sat inside on wooden horses. “They don’t make paints like they used to.”
Pictures of a younger BeneduceMcGrath sit behind the counter at the community staple. On Monday, a grayer goatee circled his smile as he described the touchups he had to make. It was the first time he has had to touch it up since it was built.
“It’s a lot of fun to come back and remember the turning points of the job,” he said. “It’s fun all over again... You remember the challenges you had.”
BeneduceMcGrath said he recalls the molds to build the arch across the top of the sign were among the most challenging. Details were added, and some were removed, the artist recalled, as he expressed the importance of the three seconds the average mind gives a sign.
“The sign is the voice of the building,” he said. “It sets the mood in any situation.”
The 1975 graduate of Logansport High School credits a lot of his beginning to Mike McManus, a local artist whose work he called “crisp and clean. His work was simply perfect.”
Though BeneduceMcGrath usually makes trips back to Logansport either annually or every other year, it had been three years since he returned this time.
“What makes a town is the people,” he said. “You always come back to the ones you love.”
He said traveling through town, when he was not working on the sign, and seeing businesses open in otherwise abandoned buildings brought a smile to his face.
“It’s good,” he said of the efforts being made at The People’s Winery and The State Theatre. “Any time you see some positive step forward, it’s exciting. I got to see that this time, and it’s a big thrill.”
BeneduceMcGrath said he was welcomed with the assistance of Logansport firefighters, who helped bring the sign down from the exterior wall. He said he loves how the community appreciates the carousel.
“We have something here that is a piece of history for every kid that has ever lived here,” he said. “We have an absolute masterpiece.”
BeneduceMcGrath said he was honored to be chosen to make the needed painting and Smalts glass improvements to the sign. He hope his hands have the opportunity to care for this favorite work of art in another decade.
“This is my best piece of work that I’ve ever done,” said the 55-year-old Logansport native who has been in town since late last week to touch up the sign. “This is my favorite.”
BeneduceMcGrath, who has made a living as a sign maker in New Jersey for about three decades, designed and helped build the 12-foot-by-5-foot, 600-pound sign with wooden trim and letters made of urethane.
He remembered the nine months it took him, a mechanical engineer, licensed electricians and a civil engineer to put it all together. The Cass County Dentzel Carousel board hired BeneduceMcGrath to come back and touch it up.
“Weather takes its toll,” he said, as the sign sat inside on wooden horses. “They don’t make paints like they used to.”
Pictures of a younger BeneduceMcGrath sit behind the counter at the community staple. On Monday, a grayer goatee circled his smile as he described the touchups he had to make. It was the first time he has had to touch it up since it was built.
“It’s a lot of fun to come back and remember the turning points of the job,” he said. “It’s fun all over again... You remember the challenges you had.”
BeneduceMcGrath said he recalls the molds to build the arch across the top of the sign were among the most challenging. Details were added, and some were removed, the artist recalled, as he expressed the importance of the three seconds the average mind gives a sign.
“The sign is the voice of the building,” he said. “It sets the mood in any situation.”
The 1975 graduate of Logansport High School credits a lot of his beginning to Mike McManus, a local artist whose work he called “crisp and clean. His work was simply perfect.”
Though BeneduceMcGrath usually makes trips back to Logansport either annually or every other year, it had been three years since he returned this time.
“What makes a town is the people,” he said. “You always come back to the ones you love.”
He said traveling through town, when he was not working on the sign, and seeing businesses open in otherwise abandoned buildings brought a smile to his face.
“It’s good,” he said of the efforts being made at The People’s Winery and The State Theatre. “Any time you see some positive step forward, it’s exciting. I got to see that this time, and it’s a big thrill.”
BeneduceMcGrath said he was welcomed with the assistance of Logansport firefighters, who helped bring the sign down from the exterior wall. He said he loves how the community appreciates the carousel.
“We have something here that is a piece of history for every kid that has ever lived here,” he said. “We have an absolute masterpiece.”
BeneduceMcGrath said he was honored to be chosen to make the needed painting and Smalts glass improvements to the sign. He hope his hands have the opportunity to care for this favorite work of art in another decade.
2012年3月26日星期一
Software Offers Data Repair, Modeling for Manufacture
Delcam’s PowerShape CAD software features Solid Doctor, which uses automatic data repair tools and surface creation and editing options to address problems that can be encountered when translating low-precision and incomplete data. These problems are said to include gaps and overlaps between surfaces as well as duplicated and missing surfaces. The software is designed to carry out simple repairs quickly and easily, while more complex problems can be overcome by deleting and replacing the existing surfaces within the model, the company says.
Once the model has been repaired, the software offers a variety of direct-modeling options to optimize the design for manufacture, particularly for the development of molds and other types of tooling. One such option enables product designers to add draft-to-CAD models, which helps remove as-designed parts from tooling. Adding draft can be accomplished either by using a specific value or by modifying the model interactively. The change can be applied to a single surface or to a group of surfaces, such as the sides of a pocket. In the latter case, the software maintains the radii of any fillets linking the sides.
According to the company, small fillets can require extra machining time and increase delivery times and costs. They can restrict the flow of material in molds or dies, increasing processing times and pressures. PowerShape can use direct modeling to identify fillets within imported geometry, even when the modeling history has been lost, and replace them with new fillets that have more suitable radii, the company says.
Once the design is complete for manufacturing, it can be transferred to virtually any CAM product, including Delcam’s FeatureCAM for feature-based programming, PowerMill for high-speed and five-axis machining, PartMaker for programming turn-mill equipment and Swiss-type lathes, and Delcam for SolidWorks.
Once the model has been repaired, the software offers a variety of direct-modeling options to optimize the design for manufacture, particularly for the development of molds and other types of tooling. One such option enables product designers to add draft-to-CAD models, which helps remove as-designed parts from tooling. Adding draft can be accomplished either by using a specific value or by modifying the model interactively. The change can be applied to a single surface or to a group of surfaces, such as the sides of a pocket. In the latter case, the software maintains the radii of any fillets linking the sides.
According to the company, small fillets can require extra machining time and increase delivery times and costs. They can restrict the flow of material in molds or dies, increasing processing times and pressures. PowerShape can use direct modeling to identify fillets within imported geometry, even when the modeling history has been lost, and replace them with new fillets that have more suitable radii, the company says.
Once the design is complete for manufacturing, it can be transferred to virtually any CAM product, including Delcam’s FeatureCAM for feature-based programming, PowerMill for high-speed and five-axis machining, PartMaker for programming turn-mill equipment and Swiss-type lathes, and Delcam for SolidWorks.
2012年3月25日星期日
Santorum wins Louisiana, trails badly in delegates
Rick Santorum vowed to remain in the race after turning in an easy victory in the Louisiana primary, even though he still badly trails front-runner Mitt Romney and faces a nearly impossible task to win enough delegates to secure the Republican presidential nomination.
With all Louisiana precincts reporting, Santorum captured 49 percent of the vote to 27 percent for Romney. Newt Gingrich, was far back at 16 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 6 percent.
Although the victory gives Santorum bragging rights and 10 more delegates, it does not change the overall dynamics of the race. The former Pennsylvania senator still dramatically lags behind Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, in the battle for delegates to the party's August nominating convention in Tampa, Florida.
Santorum on Sunday told voters in Wisconsin that Romney is "uniquely disqualified" to be the Republican's presidential pick and urged his supporters to stand with him even as he faces an increasingly improbable pathway to the nomination.
The Saturday vote in Louisiana gave Romney five delegates and five will be designated as uncommitted.
With the state-by-state primary and caucus contests more than half complete, Santorum has won just 27 percent of the delegates. Romney has been accumulating delegates at a 54-percent clip. Most of the remaining states award delegates proportionally based on primary results, making it even more difficult for Santorum to close the gap.
The odds would seem to rule out nomination of Santorum. But as he savored his victory in Louisiana, the ultraconservative vowed to remain in the battle. Santorum was campaigning in Wisconsin, which holds its primary on April 3.
"Even though a lot of folks are saying this race is over, the people in Louisiana said, 'No, it's not.' They still want to see someone who they can trust, someone who's not running an Etch a Sketch campaign, but one who has their principals written on their heart, not on an erasable tablet," Santorum said Sunday on CBS television's "Face the Nation". "And I think that's what helped us deliver the win in Louisiana, and I think we're going to do very well up here in Wisconsin, too."
Santorum was referring to a comment last week by a top Romney campaign adviser implying that once nominated "everything changes" for Romney "like an Etch a Sketch," referring to a mechanical drawing toy that just needs shaking for the image to vanish. The comment implied that Romney would be able to move his positions more to the center of the political specturm in the general election campaign.
The remark fueled long-standing criticism that Romney, who has held more moderate views in the past on sensitive issues such as abortion and gay rights, molds his principles to fit political goals and lacks conservative convictions.
But the Republican establishment is increasingly coalescing around Romney's candidacy out of concern that an extended nomination fight could hurt the party's chances against President Barack Obama. The Democratic incumbent faces no serious primary challenge and his re-election campaign already is well under way.
An influential Republican senator said on Sunday that the nominating race was all but finished.
"I think the primary is over. Romney will be the nominee," South Carolina's Lindsey Graham told CNN. "The fat lady hasn't sung yet. But she's warming up."
Romney has churned through the nomination contest with a huge financial and organizational advantage, further dimming the likelihood that Santorum will pull off the nearly impossible task. His campaign staff rubbed that in after Santorum's Saturday victory.
"Rick Santorum is like a football team celebrating a field goal (a 3-point score) when they are losing by seven touchdowns (42 points) with less than a minute left in the game," said Romney spokesman Ryan Williams, who was at Santorum's sparsely attended victory party in Green Bay, Wisconsin. That state holds its primary on April 3.
Romney remains far ahead with 568 delegates to Santorum's 273, according to an Associated Press tally. Newt Gingrich follows with 135 and Ron Paul has 50.
With all Louisiana precincts reporting, Santorum captured 49 percent of the vote to 27 percent for Romney. Newt Gingrich, was far back at 16 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 6 percent.
Although the victory gives Santorum bragging rights and 10 more delegates, it does not change the overall dynamics of the race. The former Pennsylvania senator still dramatically lags behind Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, in the battle for delegates to the party's August nominating convention in Tampa, Florida.
Santorum on Sunday told voters in Wisconsin that Romney is "uniquely disqualified" to be the Republican's presidential pick and urged his supporters to stand with him even as he faces an increasingly improbable pathway to the nomination.
The Saturday vote in Louisiana gave Romney five delegates and five will be designated as uncommitted.
With the state-by-state primary and caucus contests more than half complete, Santorum has won just 27 percent of the delegates. Romney has been accumulating delegates at a 54-percent clip. Most of the remaining states award delegates proportionally based on primary results, making it even more difficult for Santorum to close the gap.
The odds would seem to rule out nomination of Santorum. But as he savored his victory in Louisiana, the ultraconservative vowed to remain in the battle. Santorum was campaigning in Wisconsin, which holds its primary on April 3.
"Even though a lot of folks are saying this race is over, the people in Louisiana said, 'No, it's not.' They still want to see someone who they can trust, someone who's not running an Etch a Sketch campaign, but one who has their principals written on their heart, not on an erasable tablet," Santorum said Sunday on CBS television's "Face the Nation". "And I think that's what helped us deliver the win in Louisiana, and I think we're going to do very well up here in Wisconsin, too."
Santorum was referring to a comment last week by a top Romney campaign adviser implying that once nominated "everything changes" for Romney "like an Etch a Sketch," referring to a mechanical drawing toy that just needs shaking for the image to vanish. The comment implied that Romney would be able to move his positions more to the center of the political specturm in the general election campaign.
The remark fueled long-standing criticism that Romney, who has held more moderate views in the past on sensitive issues such as abortion and gay rights, molds his principles to fit political goals and lacks conservative convictions.
But the Republican establishment is increasingly coalescing around Romney's candidacy out of concern that an extended nomination fight could hurt the party's chances against President Barack Obama. The Democratic incumbent faces no serious primary challenge and his re-election campaign already is well under way.
An influential Republican senator said on Sunday that the nominating race was all but finished.
"I think the primary is over. Romney will be the nominee," South Carolina's Lindsey Graham told CNN. "The fat lady hasn't sung yet. But she's warming up."
Romney has churned through the nomination contest with a huge financial and organizational advantage, further dimming the likelihood that Santorum will pull off the nearly impossible task. His campaign staff rubbed that in after Santorum's Saturday victory.
"Rick Santorum is like a football team celebrating a field goal (a 3-point score) when they are losing by seven touchdowns (42 points) with less than a minute left in the game," said Romney spokesman Ryan Williams, who was at Santorum's sparsely attended victory party in Green Bay, Wisconsin. That state holds its primary on April 3.
Romney remains far ahead with 568 delegates to Santorum's 273, according to an Associated Press tally. Newt Gingrich follows with 135 and Ron Paul has 50.
2012年3月22日星期四
From Page to Screen
By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the famous black and gold cover of “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins. Between the movie’s long-awaited release in theaters on March 23 and bookstores desperately trying to keep the trilogy on their shelves, the book’s popularity has skyrocketed in recent months.
The adrenaline-rushing novel takes place in a futuristic nation called Panem, where Katniss Everdeen, the novel’s protagonist, volunteers herself as a tribute for the 74th Annual Hunger Games to take her younger sister’s, Prim’s, position.
In the Hunger Games, there are two tributes selected from each district. Their names are pulled out of a bowl at the reaping. The reaping consists of all the children ages 12 to 18 in the district, and their names are picked at random. Other teens can volunteer as tributes if they wish to do so. The rest of the tributes are randomly selected.
Katniss is the female representing District 12. The male representative from District 12 is Peeta Mellark. Since District 12 is also the poorest district in the nation of Panem, Katniss and Peeta become the underdogs. The Hunger Games is a national competition and its rules are simple: 24 tributes enter the arena and only one of them survives.
Katniss is forced to leave behind one of her closest friends, Gale Hawthorne, as well as her family, which only includes her mother and her sister, Prim.
When Katniss leaves, she is sent into a world that she would never have the chance of knowing — the Capitol of Panem. She is beyond far from her impoverished life in District 12.
She is mentored by Haymitch Abernathy, winner of the 50th Hunger Games, who is from District 12. Haymitch has the responsibility of helping Katniss and Peeta train for the games. Effie Trinket, District 12’s fashion-forward escort, was the announcer at the reaping where Katniss volunteered herself.
One of the only friends that Katniss makes in the Capitol is her stylist, Cinna. Cinna and his prep team transform Katniss from a girl in District 12 to a fierce competitor in the eyes of the Capitol.
“The Hunger Games” is different from its other book-to-film teen novels. Unlike J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series and Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series, “The Hunger Games” is filled with everyday teenagers in a realistic setting. They possess no magic or supernatural powers. The only thing that causes them to stand out is that they must fight to the death in an arena where they have no idea what could be thrown at them next.
It is always interesting to see how Hollywood molds and shapes novels. From the looks of the theatrical trailer, the filmmakers and actors have all done a lot of work and they seem to be very invested in the series and their characters. Hopefully, the film does more than just scratch the surface of the novel and truly makes moviegoers feel like they are really in the Games with the tributes.
The adrenaline-rushing novel takes place in a futuristic nation called Panem, where Katniss Everdeen, the novel’s protagonist, volunteers herself as a tribute for the 74th Annual Hunger Games to take her younger sister’s, Prim’s, position.
In the Hunger Games, there are two tributes selected from each district. Their names are pulled out of a bowl at the reaping. The reaping consists of all the children ages 12 to 18 in the district, and their names are picked at random. Other teens can volunteer as tributes if they wish to do so. The rest of the tributes are randomly selected.
Katniss is the female representing District 12. The male representative from District 12 is Peeta Mellark. Since District 12 is also the poorest district in the nation of Panem, Katniss and Peeta become the underdogs. The Hunger Games is a national competition and its rules are simple: 24 tributes enter the arena and only one of them survives.
Katniss is forced to leave behind one of her closest friends, Gale Hawthorne, as well as her family, which only includes her mother and her sister, Prim.
When Katniss leaves, she is sent into a world that she would never have the chance of knowing — the Capitol of Panem. She is beyond far from her impoverished life in District 12.
She is mentored by Haymitch Abernathy, winner of the 50th Hunger Games, who is from District 12. Haymitch has the responsibility of helping Katniss and Peeta train for the games. Effie Trinket, District 12’s fashion-forward escort, was the announcer at the reaping where Katniss volunteered herself.
One of the only friends that Katniss makes in the Capitol is her stylist, Cinna. Cinna and his prep team transform Katniss from a girl in District 12 to a fierce competitor in the eyes of the Capitol.
“The Hunger Games” is different from its other book-to-film teen novels. Unlike J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series and Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series, “The Hunger Games” is filled with everyday teenagers in a realistic setting. They possess no magic or supernatural powers. The only thing that causes them to stand out is that they must fight to the death in an arena where they have no idea what could be thrown at them next.
It is always interesting to see how Hollywood molds and shapes novels. From the looks of the theatrical trailer, the filmmakers and actors have all done a lot of work and they seem to be very invested in the series and their characters. Hopefully, the film does more than just scratch the surface of the novel and truly makes moviegoers feel like they are really in the Games with the tributes.
2012年3月21日星期三
Districts Prepare for Common Core
Teachers in local districts are excited about the new common core standards and preparing as quickly as they can for their implementation.
“It’s a bit like changing the tire when the car is rolling at 65 miles an hour,” said Lewisboro Elementary School teacher Shari Robinson, on re-tooling curriculum to meet new standards adopted by New York in 2010 and 43 other states to date. "But the changes, like having students explore topics more in-depth, are good."
The initiative is not without its challenges—time to plan, for one. While students vacationed, Katonah Lewisboro teachers spent their winter break working on applying the new standards to existing curricula and in Bedford, planning is also well underway.
Schools are also busy implementing the new teacher evaluation system and assessments that will be used to rate a teacher's performance.
"Any teacher worth their salt will tell you they need time to think differently about their teaching and how to modify or identify new instructional materials," said Drew Patrick, Bedford Central's assistant superintendent of instruction. Schools were require this year to teach two units at each grade level to the new standards, which will be completely rolled out by fall 2013.
In both districts, administrators emphasized that their own standards in some cases exceed the minimum established by the common core and the new framework provides ample opportunity for local flexibility.
"The common core builds on where we are," said Cristy Harris, LES principal, at a recent presentation to parents. "There’s a lot of room for us to determine how those standards to fit the students we are teaching here."
Gwen Kopeinig, who worked alongside Robinson over the winter break, said instruction will be accelerated. "In math, for example, students will be expected to master their multiplication facts by the third grade," she said. Teachers will spend less them "modeling" and more time encouraging student persistence finding solutions, helping them to break down the problem and try again.
Fewer topics will be covered, but units will be taught with a deeper focus, said Harris. For example, the district's Everyday Math program currently jumps from topic to topic but now teachers will intensively cover a unit such as measurement or fractions before moving on.
The English-language arts standards place a new emphasis on students reading informational texts and dictate that 50 percent be non-fiction works.
But that doesn't mean ELA teachers can't teach fiction, said Patrick.
"The core explicitly acknowledges the shared responsibility of all teachers in the school regarding literacy," he said. "So science and social studies teachers are also teaching reading, writing, speaking and listening—and their work has a heavy emphasis on non-fiction. So there is room for both."
Harris told parents that the Fundations program would continue to be used in classrooms but report cards would need to change to reflect new performance indicators. Schools are examining classroom materials, library inventory and supplemental magazine subscriptions to provide a wider array of reading sources. "We're on the learning curve with everyone else," she said.
Kopeinig agreed, simultaneously exhibiting both the energy and concern that changes can bring.
“It’s a bit like changing the tire when the car is rolling at 65 miles an hour,” said Lewisboro Elementary School teacher Shari Robinson, on re-tooling curriculum to meet new standards adopted by New York in 2010 and 43 other states to date. "But the changes, like having students explore topics more in-depth, are good."
The initiative is not without its challenges—time to plan, for one. While students vacationed, Katonah Lewisboro teachers spent their winter break working on applying the new standards to existing curricula and in Bedford, planning is also well underway.
Schools are also busy implementing the new teacher evaluation system and assessments that will be used to rate a teacher's performance.
"Any teacher worth their salt will tell you they need time to think differently about their teaching and how to modify or identify new instructional materials," said Drew Patrick, Bedford Central's assistant superintendent of instruction. Schools were require this year to teach two units at each grade level to the new standards, which will be completely rolled out by fall 2013.
In both districts, administrators emphasized that their own standards in some cases exceed the minimum established by the common core and the new framework provides ample opportunity for local flexibility.
"The common core builds on where we are," said Cristy Harris, LES principal, at a recent presentation to parents. "There’s a lot of room for us to determine how those standards to fit the students we are teaching here."
Gwen Kopeinig, who worked alongside Robinson over the winter break, said instruction will be accelerated. "In math, for example, students will be expected to master their multiplication facts by the third grade," she said. Teachers will spend less them "modeling" and more time encouraging student persistence finding solutions, helping them to break down the problem and try again.
Fewer topics will be covered, but units will be taught with a deeper focus, said Harris. For example, the district's Everyday Math program currently jumps from topic to topic but now teachers will intensively cover a unit such as measurement or fractions before moving on.
The English-language arts standards place a new emphasis on students reading informational texts and dictate that 50 percent be non-fiction works.
But that doesn't mean ELA teachers can't teach fiction, said Patrick.
"The core explicitly acknowledges the shared responsibility of all teachers in the school regarding literacy," he said. "So science and social studies teachers are also teaching reading, writing, speaking and listening—and their work has a heavy emphasis on non-fiction. So there is room for both."
Harris told parents that the Fundations program would continue to be used in classrooms but report cards would need to change to reflect new performance indicators. Schools are examining classroom materials, library inventory and supplemental magazine subscriptions to provide a wider array of reading sources. "We're on the learning curve with everyone else," she said.
Kopeinig agreed, simultaneously exhibiting both the energy and concern that changes can bring.
2012年3月20日星期二
My Inspiration Station
Right from the beginning, my family wasn't your typical "cookies and milk" type of family in the New Jersey split-level with the matching Volvos in the circular driveway on the plot at the end of the cul-de-sac. We did have a nice house and did usually have all that we needed as far as food and clothes and toys. We always had nice holidays and birthdays and a lot of the times I look back on I can see myself smiling and playing outside in the summer until way past dark, filthy from head to toe and enjoying every second of running around with my brother and the other neighborhood kids. And as a kid, I projected forward to being an adult and seeing myself cherishing those precious moments where I was truly able to be a kid, running around in my chocolate-stained pink T-shirt without a care in the world.
The last thing in the world I thought I would look back on and have gratitude for was my free-spirited mother who believed in doing everything the opposite of what other people did. When all the mothers bought white bread, my mother bough whole-grain nut bread from the specialty bakery because my brother had severe food allergies. When all the other mothers bought gallons of cow's milk, my mother made the 45-minute drive to the only natural foods market in all of the tri-state area just to buy organic soy milk. And when all the mothers bought the chemical-loaded bright icing sheet cakes from the chain grocery stores for birthday parties, my mom put a special call into her gluten-free baker who whipped up a gluten- and dairy-free cake. And while all the other kids enjoyed chocolate Santas and easter eggs and bunnies, my brother and I gnawed away on our dairy-free carob treats. And it didn't stop at the food. My mother also didn't believe in buying "trendy" or "in-style" clothes for us and my brother and I spent the majority of our childhood dressed in saddle shoes and corduroys while the other kids got to run around in their neon day-glow shorts and T-shirts with worlds like "Rad" written on them. And then when I was on the soccer team in high school, it was my mother who would spread a hemp blanket out on the hill above the field and look down on the game as her blonde hair blew back in the breeze.
At the time, I didn't appreciate her, nor did I appreciate the things she did that I swore were the things that made me different from all of the other kids. I blamed her for a long time, starting with the day in first grade where everyone had to stand up and share what they wanted to be when they grew up. Child after child stood up and said "fireman" or "mommy" or "teacher." When it came time for me to stand, I couldn't think of any "mold" that I fit into, and so I said: "I want to help people." My teacher was completely confused by this and thus told me that what I wanted was to be a doctor. I looked at her like a deer in the headlights and nodded my head yes as all the other kids laughed at me because I was the one child who didn't have a clear view of what I wanted. And there it happened, at 7 years old -- I felt different and convinced myself it was my mother's fault. My mom had different morals, different ideas of how kids should be raised, and different ethical values than other parents had, and she didn't believe in telling me that I had four ways I could spend the rest of my life, but instead encouraged me to do whatever made me happy, no matter what it was. She taught me not to settle for anything less than what my wildest dreams were. And it's now that I look back and understand that out of all the things in my childhood, I am most thankful for her.
The last thing in the world I thought I would look back on and have gratitude for was my free-spirited mother who believed in doing everything the opposite of what other people did. When all the mothers bought white bread, my mother bough whole-grain nut bread from the specialty bakery because my brother had severe food allergies. When all the other mothers bought gallons of cow's milk, my mother made the 45-minute drive to the only natural foods market in all of the tri-state area just to buy organic soy milk. And when all the mothers bought the chemical-loaded bright icing sheet cakes from the chain grocery stores for birthday parties, my mom put a special call into her gluten-free baker who whipped up a gluten- and dairy-free cake. And while all the other kids enjoyed chocolate Santas and easter eggs and bunnies, my brother and I gnawed away on our dairy-free carob treats. And it didn't stop at the food. My mother also didn't believe in buying "trendy" or "in-style" clothes for us and my brother and I spent the majority of our childhood dressed in saddle shoes and corduroys while the other kids got to run around in their neon day-glow shorts and T-shirts with worlds like "Rad" written on them. And then when I was on the soccer team in high school, it was my mother who would spread a hemp blanket out on the hill above the field and look down on the game as her blonde hair blew back in the breeze.
At the time, I didn't appreciate her, nor did I appreciate the things she did that I swore were the things that made me different from all of the other kids. I blamed her for a long time, starting with the day in first grade where everyone had to stand up and share what they wanted to be when they grew up. Child after child stood up and said "fireman" or "mommy" or "teacher." When it came time for me to stand, I couldn't think of any "mold" that I fit into, and so I said: "I want to help people." My teacher was completely confused by this and thus told me that what I wanted was to be a doctor. I looked at her like a deer in the headlights and nodded my head yes as all the other kids laughed at me because I was the one child who didn't have a clear view of what I wanted. And there it happened, at 7 years old -- I felt different and convinced myself it was my mother's fault. My mom had different morals, different ideas of how kids should be raised, and different ethical values than other parents had, and she didn't believe in telling me that I had four ways I could spend the rest of my life, but instead encouraged me to do whatever made me happy, no matter what it was. She taught me not to settle for anything less than what my wildest dreams were. And it's now that I look back and understand that out of all the things in my childhood, I am most thankful for her.
2012年3月19日星期一
OPEN MIND to exhibit hyperMILL aerospace functions at Westec 2012
OPEN MIND will present the latest release of hyperMILL in Booth 2257 at the Westec show in Los Angeles from March 27-29. This show attracts many attendees from southern California that has a concentration of aerospace, energy and defense business.
hyperMILL provides a broad set of cutter path strategies ranging from 2.5D through 5-axis, plus mill-turn, and also with specialty applications for multi-blade and single-blade turbomachinery, tire molds and dental restorative components. Recent product development and new licenses have included applications for the aerospace, energy, and defense business matching the west coast market.
One example is the innovative shape-offset roughing and finishing techniques that are used for programming shaped surfaces. Techniques exist for pocket roughing, side-wall finishing and rest machining. The roughing has an innovative option utilizing the hyperMAXX high performance roughing module, based on Celeritive’s Volumill kernel. This roughing technique brings high performance roughing to multi-axis applications. The entire suite of shape-offset methods is used for 4- or 5-axis machining, depending on the source geometry. Applications may be for engine casing, structural components, tire molds, or cylindrical roll-dies.
The turbomachinery solutions have recently achieved high praise from new users. Recent enhancements have focused on reducing roughing cycle times and improving surface finish and machining cycle times with newer smoothing techniques. “The multi-blade turbomachinery application has been well-received in the market, clearly surpassing the performance of general-purpose CAM solutions and being competitive with single-purpose niche applications, that are limited when you need to turn the outer contours or machine associated hardware”, states Alan Levine, Managing Director of OPEN MIND Technologies USA.
OPEN MIND also develops and offers custom postprocessors for milling machines and mill-turn machines that take advantage of advanced machine control functions. Customers often overlook the importance of a solid postprocessor. The postprocessors are often linked to custom machine models, used with OPEN MIND’s material removal and collision checking simulation utility, or by export to third party programs such as CG Tech’s Vericut and Spring’s NC Simul.
OPEN MIND Technologies AG is a leading developer of CAD/CAM software and postprocessors for designing and manufacturing complex moulds and parts. OPEN MIND offers an extensive range of products from 2D feature-oriented solutions for milling standard parts through to software for 5axis simultaneous machining.
With their hyperMILL software, which is used in the automotive, tool and mould manufacturing, mechanical engineering, medical and aerospace, and watch and jewellery industries, OPEN MIND Technologies AG is represented in all the important markets in Asia, Europe and North America.
hyperMILL provides a broad set of cutter path strategies ranging from 2.5D through 5-axis, plus mill-turn, and also with specialty applications for multi-blade and single-blade turbomachinery, tire molds and dental restorative components. Recent product development and new licenses have included applications for the aerospace, energy, and defense business matching the west coast market.
One example is the innovative shape-offset roughing and finishing techniques that are used for programming shaped surfaces. Techniques exist for pocket roughing, side-wall finishing and rest machining. The roughing has an innovative option utilizing the hyperMAXX high performance roughing module, based on Celeritive’s Volumill kernel. This roughing technique brings high performance roughing to multi-axis applications. The entire suite of shape-offset methods is used for 4- or 5-axis machining, depending on the source geometry. Applications may be for engine casing, structural components, tire molds, or cylindrical roll-dies.
The turbomachinery solutions have recently achieved high praise from new users. Recent enhancements have focused on reducing roughing cycle times and improving surface finish and machining cycle times with newer smoothing techniques. “The multi-blade turbomachinery application has been well-received in the market, clearly surpassing the performance of general-purpose CAM solutions and being competitive with single-purpose niche applications, that are limited when you need to turn the outer contours or machine associated hardware”, states Alan Levine, Managing Director of OPEN MIND Technologies USA.
OPEN MIND also develops and offers custom postprocessors for milling machines and mill-turn machines that take advantage of advanced machine control functions. Customers often overlook the importance of a solid postprocessor. The postprocessors are often linked to custom machine models, used with OPEN MIND’s material removal and collision checking simulation utility, or by export to third party programs such as CG Tech’s Vericut and Spring’s NC Simul.
OPEN MIND Technologies AG is a leading developer of CAD/CAM software and postprocessors for designing and manufacturing complex moulds and parts. OPEN MIND offers an extensive range of products from 2D feature-oriented solutions for milling standard parts through to software for 5axis simultaneous machining.
With their hyperMILL software, which is used in the automotive, tool and mould manufacturing, mechanical engineering, medical and aerospace, and watch and jewellery industries, OPEN MIND Technologies AG is represented in all the important markets in Asia, Europe and North America.
2012年3月18日星期日
Tribe shows way to save rare dolphins
The Tagbanua people may be obscure and small, but their indigenous practices could pull Irrawaddy dolphins in Malampaya Sound in Palawan back from the brink of extinction.
Over the years, destructive fishing practices have depleted the population of Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) in the waters of northwest Palawan, according to a study by the Philippine chapter of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
The population of the marine mammals in Malampaya Sound, one of two areas in the country where they are found, has plummeted to 42 from 77 in 2001, according to the environmental group. The other habitat is in Central Visayas.
Joel Palma, a WWF conservationist, said up to seven dolphins were dying every year, tangled up in fishing nets and traps used by fishermen in Malampaya Sound, an ecologically rich region that has coral reefs, sea grass beds, mangroves and lowland forests.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources has classified the Irrawaddy dolphins as critically endangered—the highest risk category for any animal species.
There are only about 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins left worldwide, the WWF said. It would be nearly impossible to replenish their population in Malampaya Sound if the number drops below 40.
The WFF has called for a change in fishing practices and urged local communities to follow the sustainable fishing methods of the Tagbanua.
The tribe’s fishing practices have shown “how people can steward nature without destroying it,” the group said. Not only would this help curb dolphin deaths but it would also preserve the ecosystem of the resource-rich waters.
“Everything is interlinked— the survival of the Irrawaddy dolphins and the conservation of Malampaya Sound are dependent on the economy and the culture of its own stewards,” Palma said.
“Dolphins are top-tier predators and their presence indicates the soaring health of local marine ecosystems. Should the dolphins be pushed into extinction, Malampaya Sound’s rich fishing industry might crash as well,” he added.
Raoul Cola, who studied the indigenous practices of the Tagbanua for the WWF in his book “Conserving Nature As Lifeways,” which was published last week, said the tribe conserved marine resources using extraction schedule and selective harvesting.
The Tagbanua people catch certain fish species based on the position of the moon or the tide. They also share their catch among neighbors and relatives, avoiding wastage and overfishing.
Their methods do not have a heavy impact on the environment and provide time for resource restoration, Cola said.
The Tagbanuas show the important role that indigenous peoples play in the protection of the threatened but highly biodiverse areas they call home.
Mavic Matillano, who was in charge of the Irrawaddy study completed in 2007, said the tribe’s sustainable practices were rooted in its belief that nature must be respected.
In the Tagbanua mythical belief system, for instance, dolphins are messengers of the deity and should not be caught.
“For them, the dolphins are bearer of good tidings and are also the omen of something bad that will happen like typhoons or calamities, depending on the behavior of the animal,” Matillano said.
“That, in a way made the lumad [non-Muslim indigenous peoples in Mindanao] also believe that when you hurt a dolphin, something bad may happen to you,” she added.
But as time went on and migrants settled in the sound, the Tagbanua’s indigenous practices were replaced by modern fishing methods that rapidly depleted resources.
Migrant fishermen use longline traps and fishing nets which they leave overnight to catch crabs and fishes, the WWF said.
Because the traps and nets are underwater and are difficult to detect by echolocation, the dolphins find themselves trapped in the lines and unable to surface for air.
“The dolphins could not breathe so they drowned,” Palma said.
Dolphins are not the only species whose populations have declined.
“Although the Sound was long recognized as a fish basket of the country, its production noticeably decreased. It cannot keep up with the market-driven harvesting of the settlers and commercial fishers,” Cola said in his study.
WWF officials said the most important thing to do right now was to change the fishing practices of the coastal communities there. The group and Cola pointed to the Tagbanua fishing practices as a model of sustainable practice.
The WWF has urged the communities to switch to individual traps and safe fishing gear.
Palma said the change had led to a dramatic decrease in mortality rates, with only one or two dolphin casualties in a year.
Over the years, destructive fishing practices have depleted the population of Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) in the waters of northwest Palawan, according to a study by the Philippine chapter of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
The population of the marine mammals in Malampaya Sound, one of two areas in the country where they are found, has plummeted to 42 from 77 in 2001, according to the environmental group. The other habitat is in Central Visayas.
Joel Palma, a WWF conservationist, said up to seven dolphins were dying every year, tangled up in fishing nets and traps used by fishermen in Malampaya Sound, an ecologically rich region that has coral reefs, sea grass beds, mangroves and lowland forests.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources has classified the Irrawaddy dolphins as critically endangered—the highest risk category for any animal species.
There are only about 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins left worldwide, the WWF said. It would be nearly impossible to replenish their population in Malampaya Sound if the number drops below 40.
The WFF has called for a change in fishing practices and urged local communities to follow the sustainable fishing methods of the Tagbanua.
The tribe’s fishing practices have shown “how people can steward nature without destroying it,” the group said. Not only would this help curb dolphin deaths but it would also preserve the ecosystem of the resource-rich waters.
“Everything is interlinked— the survival of the Irrawaddy dolphins and the conservation of Malampaya Sound are dependent on the economy and the culture of its own stewards,” Palma said.
“Dolphins are top-tier predators and their presence indicates the soaring health of local marine ecosystems. Should the dolphins be pushed into extinction, Malampaya Sound’s rich fishing industry might crash as well,” he added.
Raoul Cola, who studied the indigenous practices of the Tagbanua for the WWF in his book “Conserving Nature As Lifeways,” which was published last week, said the tribe conserved marine resources using extraction schedule and selective harvesting.
The Tagbanua people catch certain fish species based on the position of the moon or the tide. They also share their catch among neighbors and relatives, avoiding wastage and overfishing.
Their methods do not have a heavy impact on the environment and provide time for resource restoration, Cola said.
The Tagbanuas show the important role that indigenous peoples play in the protection of the threatened but highly biodiverse areas they call home.
Mavic Matillano, who was in charge of the Irrawaddy study completed in 2007, said the tribe’s sustainable practices were rooted in its belief that nature must be respected.
In the Tagbanua mythical belief system, for instance, dolphins are messengers of the deity and should not be caught.
“For them, the dolphins are bearer of good tidings and are also the omen of something bad that will happen like typhoons or calamities, depending on the behavior of the animal,” Matillano said.
“That, in a way made the lumad [non-Muslim indigenous peoples in Mindanao] also believe that when you hurt a dolphin, something bad may happen to you,” she added.
But as time went on and migrants settled in the sound, the Tagbanua’s indigenous practices were replaced by modern fishing methods that rapidly depleted resources.
Migrant fishermen use longline traps and fishing nets which they leave overnight to catch crabs and fishes, the WWF said.
Because the traps and nets are underwater and are difficult to detect by echolocation, the dolphins find themselves trapped in the lines and unable to surface for air.
“The dolphins could not breathe so they drowned,” Palma said.
Dolphins are not the only species whose populations have declined.
“Although the Sound was long recognized as a fish basket of the country, its production noticeably decreased. It cannot keep up with the market-driven harvesting of the settlers and commercial fishers,” Cola said in his study.
WWF officials said the most important thing to do right now was to change the fishing practices of the coastal communities there. The group and Cola pointed to the Tagbanua fishing practices as a model of sustainable practice.
The WWF has urged the communities to switch to individual traps and safe fishing gear.
Palma said the change had led to a dramatic decrease in mortality rates, with only one or two dolphin casualties in a year.
2012年3月15日星期四
Arburg achieves record turnover in 2011
Managing partner Michael Hehl called the numbers “a record result for Arburg” when he presented the results on the first morning of Arburg’s annual Technology Days open house on March 14. The previous record had been turnover of 409 million euros in 2007.
The result is close to the overall average growth of 23 percent announced recently by VDMA, the German Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association.
Arburg sales director Helmut Heinson stressed that with price increases having accounted for no more than 3-4 percent, the growth in turnover has been in volume and not price inflation.
Incoming orders, however, fell 2 percent by value in 2011, amounting to around 320 million euros ($418 million) in terms of pure injection molding machine orders received at the Lossburg headquarters, as opposed to complete “project” production system solutions and orders taken by Arburg’s foreign subsidiaries.
Heinson commented: “We got onto a different track in [the fourth quarter of 2011] as the market calmed down. This has had a healing affect on delivery times, so they have got back to normal in 2012, which means four to five weeks for standard machines, 10-12 weeks for others, depending on the amount of engineering needed.”
The pattern in incoming orders shows electric-drive Alldrive machines as having grown from a 16 percent to 17 percent share of the total, Hidrive hybrid drive machines also growing their share 1 percent to 14 percent. The hydraulic drive Golden Edition machine share has dropped however from 22 percent to 19 percent.
Heinson says it is still too earlier for the new Edrive series, introduced in 2011, to show through strongly in orders, “but this will change a lot in 2012, as the real pushing of the Edrive only really started in 2012.”
Heinson added that Arburg wants to grow its project business — selling complete turnkey production cell systems.
Project sales presently account for around 12 percent of Arburg’s turnover in Germany, less so in other countries. With trained system staff now available in some foreign subsidiaries, the project business will be driven particularly hard in France, Spain and the Czech Republic, as well as in Poland and the United Kingdom.
“We want to do more of the project business worldwide too, also in China” Heinson said, “It is not a top priority in China, but will become one. Delivery of a machine with a robot is now common for China, but it is not classified as a project for Arburg. But in the past it used to be just a molding machine.”
Looking at other countries, and commenting on the financial crisis in southern European countries, Heinson said: “We normally used to sell two machines per year in Greece, but we did not sell any machines there in 2011. On the other hand, Turkey is very interesting, due to high growth and moving away from the traditional dependency on imports of cheap machines by switching to quality products [machines] made in Europe.”
There has been no obvious change for Arburg in the Italian market and business has been “satisfactory” in Spain and Portugal in 2011, with “stabilization having taken place at a high level.”
China, and Asia more generally, does present some headaches for Arburg however. There are two issues here, price and delivery times. Here, Heinson said, “the Japanese are at our price level, sometimes slightly lower. So we are not cheap. On the other hand, we suffer from seven weeks transport time from Europe to the region.”
Heinson added, “We will not seek to change our price level, as we remain with our commitment to production only in Lossburg. We need therefore to continue with our success in finding suitable customers in China [at our price levels]. But we need to look at some logistic and organizational possibilities in order get a grip on delivery times for the region. This would be a way to optimize our business [in the region].”
Overall, Arburg has been increasing its export sales share, up from around 50 percent in the past, already at 70 percent today and increasing further.
The result is close to the overall average growth of 23 percent announced recently by VDMA, the German Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association.
Arburg sales director Helmut Heinson stressed that with price increases having accounted for no more than 3-4 percent, the growth in turnover has been in volume and not price inflation.
Incoming orders, however, fell 2 percent by value in 2011, amounting to around 320 million euros ($418 million) in terms of pure injection molding machine orders received at the Lossburg headquarters, as opposed to complete “project” production system solutions and orders taken by Arburg’s foreign subsidiaries.
Heinson commented: “We got onto a different track in [the fourth quarter of 2011] as the market calmed down. This has had a healing affect on delivery times, so they have got back to normal in 2012, which means four to five weeks for standard machines, 10-12 weeks for others, depending on the amount of engineering needed.”
The pattern in incoming orders shows electric-drive Alldrive machines as having grown from a 16 percent to 17 percent share of the total, Hidrive hybrid drive machines also growing their share 1 percent to 14 percent. The hydraulic drive Golden Edition machine share has dropped however from 22 percent to 19 percent.
Heinson says it is still too earlier for the new Edrive series, introduced in 2011, to show through strongly in orders, “but this will change a lot in 2012, as the real pushing of the Edrive only really started in 2012.”
Heinson added that Arburg wants to grow its project business — selling complete turnkey production cell systems.
Project sales presently account for around 12 percent of Arburg’s turnover in Germany, less so in other countries. With trained system staff now available in some foreign subsidiaries, the project business will be driven particularly hard in France, Spain and the Czech Republic, as well as in Poland and the United Kingdom.
“We want to do more of the project business worldwide too, also in China” Heinson said, “It is not a top priority in China, but will become one. Delivery of a machine with a robot is now common for China, but it is not classified as a project for Arburg. But in the past it used to be just a molding machine.”
Looking at other countries, and commenting on the financial crisis in southern European countries, Heinson said: “We normally used to sell two machines per year in Greece, but we did not sell any machines there in 2011. On the other hand, Turkey is very interesting, due to high growth and moving away from the traditional dependency on imports of cheap machines by switching to quality products [machines] made in Europe.”
There has been no obvious change for Arburg in the Italian market and business has been “satisfactory” in Spain and Portugal in 2011, with “stabilization having taken place at a high level.”
China, and Asia more generally, does present some headaches for Arburg however. There are two issues here, price and delivery times. Here, Heinson said, “the Japanese are at our price level, sometimes slightly lower. So we are not cheap. On the other hand, we suffer from seven weeks transport time from Europe to the region.”
Heinson added, “We will not seek to change our price level, as we remain with our commitment to production only in Lossburg. We need therefore to continue with our success in finding suitable customers in China [at our price levels]. But we need to look at some logistic and organizational possibilities in order get a grip on delivery times for the region. This would be a way to optimize our business [in the region].”
Overall, Arburg has been increasing its export sales share, up from around 50 percent in the past, already at 70 percent today and increasing further.
2012年3月14日星期三
DaVinci bullish on tile sales
If DaVinci Roofscapes LLC can grow its polymer roofing business a reported 30 percent in last year’s sluggish economy, and have plans to meet or exceed that this year, how much might it grow when the housing market rebounds?
“We’re growing right now in spite of the economy,” said Ray Rosewall, the affable president and CEO of the privately owned company in Kansas City, Kansas.
“We are well-positioned in the marketplace. Once housing starts to come back, you will see explosive growth from us. I expect our sales to double in the next two to three years,” Rosewall said in an interview at the International Builders’ Show, held Feb. 8-11 in Orlando.
The growth of DaVinci’s synthetic slate and shake roofing tiles — which are engineered from virgin thermoplastic olefins and have a 50-year warranty — is taking place in a market whose low-double-digit growth is being primarily driven by asphalt shingles. The firm’s slate tiles are one-half-inch thick — which it claims is thicker than competing products and shows more pattern details.
Rosewall credits the firm’s surge in roofing tile sales to its multitude of colors and custom-color options, investments in more efficient machinery and the popularity of its lower priced, snap-fit Bellaforte slate tiles. The Bellaforte tiles, introduced just two years ago, use 20 percent less material than traditional synthetic and natural slate shingles.
“The Bellaforte line has really begun to take off,” he said. “Its lower price gave us access to a whole new group of roofing contractors, higher volume and more lower-end homeowners.
“The Bellaforte line grew sixfold in 2011,” Rosewall said. He said he believes the line will continue to grow faster than any other product line in the company’s portfolio.
Not only do customers find the Bellaforte slate tiles “more affordable” than competing products, but the product’s price is the same whether they pick from the 49 standard colors or choose a custom color — which they create themselves using a tool on the company’s website, Rosewall said.
“It tells them don’t let a color keep you from buying a roof,” he said. “Consumers clearly like to be able to pick from a pallette of colors, and we also give them the opportunity … to create a signature blend of their own. It sets us apart.”
The custom-color blends have also been a sales driver, according to DaVinci. A report the firm released in late February found that custom-color sales in its Bellaforte tiles rose from 4 percent in 2010 to 38.7 percent in 2011.
Similarly, more than 30 percent of DaVinci’s Valore slate product sales — the next grade up from Bellaforte — came from custom blends in 2011 compared to just 7 percent in 2010.
“Homeowners are breaking away from the traditional monochromatic blacks and grays on a roof by adding in accent colors and varied shades of colors,” said Rosewall. “It’s a matter of people becoming more educated on roofing color options and feeling more empowered to make personal design statements on their home’s exterior.”
To help in that education effort, DaVinci’s website has a 30-page “Fresh Home Exteriors Colors Guide,” written by color-trend forecaster Kate Smith. Consumers can download the guide to learn how to add color to the exterior of their homes.
With sales growing rapidly, Rosewall said DaVinci’s “significant investments” in equipment last year were focused on producing more shingles more efficiently. The firm plans further equipment investments this year, he added.
“Last year, we purchased a new 700-ton Mitsubishi press and two four-cavity stack molds,” which work in tandem to manufacture the slate tiles, he said. With a cycle time of 30 seconds, each four-cavity mold can produce eight parts per minute vs. just four when it used two-cavity molds, Rosewall said. The company now uses two cavities mostly for accessories and smaller-sized products, he added.
“This year, we will spend double what we did last year,” Rosewall said. That investment will be to add an eight-cavity stack mold for 16 parts per minute, which will work with an existing 1,000-ton Husky press, he said.
“With the eight-cavity mold, we can make the tiles much much faster in a very short order,” he said. “When you look at the volume increases we had last year, we needed to make these investments. The new machines will give us a huge advantage in terms of rapid response to orders. If things go as planned, we may add another 1,000-ton press in 2013.”
DaVinci also staffs its molding room 24/7 so changes can be made at any time, he said. The company has also benefited from an initiative over the past two years to build a database and meet face-to-face with architects who specify products for multifamily housing.
“That is beginning to pay off now,” Rosewall said. “We have projects coming to fruition from sales calls we made 18 months ago.
“I’m excited about 2012,” he said. “If housing starts to come back up even a little bit, we will start to feel the tailwinds of that, and sales will take off even more. There is a great opportunity to grow and take market share [from asphalt roofs].”
He added that “being able to see [our] roofs sells our roofs” both to contractors and consumers.
Reroofing projects remain the dominant part of business, historically accounting for 70 percent of its sales, but in 2013 that could be as high as 90 percent, he said. “Most of our sales in 2013 will come from remodel and reroof projects. But as new construction markets recover, we expect our ratio of new-to-reroof projects to return to historical levels.”
All roofing waste and unused tiles from projects within 500 miles of Kansas City can be shipped back to DaVinci free of charge. The company encourages contractors to return their tile scraps, unused and used tiles, so they can be repurposed and recycled as starter tiles.
“We’re growing right now in spite of the economy,” said Ray Rosewall, the affable president and CEO of the privately owned company in Kansas City, Kansas.
“We are well-positioned in the marketplace. Once housing starts to come back, you will see explosive growth from us. I expect our sales to double in the next two to three years,” Rosewall said in an interview at the International Builders’ Show, held Feb. 8-11 in Orlando.
The growth of DaVinci’s synthetic slate and shake roofing tiles — which are engineered from virgin thermoplastic olefins and have a 50-year warranty — is taking place in a market whose low-double-digit growth is being primarily driven by asphalt shingles. The firm’s slate tiles are one-half-inch thick — which it claims is thicker than competing products and shows more pattern details.
Rosewall credits the firm’s surge in roofing tile sales to its multitude of colors and custom-color options, investments in more efficient machinery and the popularity of its lower priced, snap-fit Bellaforte slate tiles. The Bellaforte tiles, introduced just two years ago, use 20 percent less material than traditional synthetic and natural slate shingles.
“The Bellaforte line has really begun to take off,” he said. “Its lower price gave us access to a whole new group of roofing contractors, higher volume and more lower-end homeowners.
“The Bellaforte line grew sixfold in 2011,” Rosewall said. He said he believes the line will continue to grow faster than any other product line in the company’s portfolio.
Not only do customers find the Bellaforte slate tiles “more affordable” than competing products, but the product’s price is the same whether they pick from the 49 standard colors or choose a custom color — which they create themselves using a tool on the company’s website, Rosewall said.
“It tells them don’t let a color keep you from buying a roof,” he said. “Consumers clearly like to be able to pick from a pallette of colors, and we also give them the opportunity … to create a signature blend of their own. It sets us apart.”
The custom-color blends have also been a sales driver, according to DaVinci. A report the firm released in late February found that custom-color sales in its Bellaforte tiles rose from 4 percent in 2010 to 38.7 percent in 2011.
Similarly, more than 30 percent of DaVinci’s Valore slate product sales — the next grade up from Bellaforte — came from custom blends in 2011 compared to just 7 percent in 2010.
“Homeowners are breaking away from the traditional monochromatic blacks and grays on a roof by adding in accent colors and varied shades of colors,” said Rosewall. “It’s a matter of people becoming more educated on roofing color options and feeling more empowered to make personal design statements on their home’s exterior.”
To help in that education effort, DaVinci’s website has a 30-page “Fresh Home Exteriors Colors Guide,” written by color-trend forecaster Kate Smith. Consumers can download the guide to learn how to add color to the exterior of their homes.
With sales growing rapidly, Rosewall said DaVinci’s “significant investments” in equipment last year were focused on producing more shingles more efficiently. The firm plans further equipment investments this year, he added.
“Last year, we purchased a new 700-ton Mitsubishi press and two four-cavity stack molds,” which work in tandem to manufacture the slate tiles, he said. With a cycle time of 30 seconds, each four-cavity mold can produce eight parts per minute vs. just four when it used two-cavity molds, Rosewall said. The company now uses two cavities mostly for accessories and smaller-sized products, he added.
“This year, we will spend double what we did last year,” Rosewall said. That investment will be to add an eight-cavity stack mold for 16 parts per minute, which will work with an existing 1,000-ton Husky press, he said.
“With the eight-cavity mold, we can make the tiles much much faster in a very short order,” he said. “When you look at the volume increases we had last year, we needed to make these investments. The new machines will give us a huge advantage in terms of rapid response to orders. If things go as planned, we may add another 1,000-ton press in 2013.”
DaVinci also staffs its molding room 24/7 so changes can be made at any time, he said. The company has also benefited from an initiative over the past two years to build a database and meet face-to-face with architects who specify products for multifamily housing.
“That is beginning to pay off now,” Rosewall said. “We have projects coming to fruition from sales calls we made 18 months ago.
“I’m excited about 2012,” he said. “If housing starts to come back up even a little bit, we will start to feel the tailwinds of that, and sales will take off even more. There is a great opportunity to grow and take market share [from asphalt roofs].”
He added that “being able to see [our] roofs sells our roofs” both to contractors and consumers.
Reroofing projects remain the dominant part of business, historically accounting for 70 percent of its sales, but in 2013 that could be as high as 90 percent, he said. “Most of our sales in 2013 will come from remodel and reroof projects. But as new construction markets recover, we expect our ratio of new-to-reroof projects to return to historical levels.”
All roofing waste and unused tiles from projects within 500 miles of Kansas City can be shipped back to DaVinci free of charge. The company encourages contractors to return their tile scraps, unused and used tiles, so they can be repurposed and recycled as starter tiles.
2012年3月13日星期二
Activists Challenge Incentives to Develop New and Better Drugs
Although roughly 20 percent of the approximately 24,000 human genes have patent protection, a petition by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation representing a number of plaintiffs specifically targets Myriad Genetics and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Organization (USPTO). Myriad discovered two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer and also developed a $3,000 diagnostic test that screens for mutations on these genes.
When scientists sequenced the human genome, their major goal was to better understand common diseases by discovering gene variants that predispose people to common diseases, develop personalized drugs, and detect patterns of adverse drug reactions. Despite investing billions of private sector and taxpayer’s dollars on personalized medicine, Myriad’s screening test provides one of the few successes.
At the heart of the controversy are different perspectives on what a gene patent means and what is actually patented. In March 2010, New York Federal Circuit Judge Sweet ruled that products of nature do not constitute patentable subject matter. Therefore, he ruled an incorrect earlier ruling led to the granting of Myriad’s BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene patents. In 1911, Parke-Davis received patent protection on synthetic adrenaline, which set a precedent that gave pharmaceutical companies an incentive to develop other synthetic forms of naturally occurring molecules. As a result, drug companies developed the lifesaving drugs such as interferon, insulin, and EPO.
In July 2011, the New York Court of Appeals decided that the plaintiff’s claims were not very convincing as three judges ruled 2-1 in favor of upholding Myriad‘s patents. Gene patents cover a three dimensional molecule, not the genetic code that forms proteins. After nearly a year of deliberations and piles of amicus curiae briefs, the decision came down to the determination that isolated gene molecules, are different than naturally occurring genes due to differences in bonding.
The plaintiffs claim the ownership of genes is immoral and that genes are a discovery not an invention. However, in patent law gene patents do not convey ownership of a gene; rather, they are a property right guaranteed by the Constitution, which temporarily excludes others from receiving financial rewards without a licensing agreement. Furthermore, the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, prohibits owning human genes.
The plaintiffs also claim that gene patents are a civil liberties issue because they undermine the free exchange of information that could prevent or delay other potential medical discoveries. Several studies, including two by the National Academy of Sciences, have not supported the claim that gene patents deter innovation. Besides, if the claims were true it would diminish the practicality of whole genome sequencing because of patent infringement. In contrast, genome sequencing is proliferating.
Myriad’s gene patents also provide temporary exclusive rights on the screening test, which excludes competition that could potentially lead to better service and lower pricing. Although health insurance covers the screening test, the plaintiffs further claim that many women at risk do not receive testing because they are uninsured or cannot afford the test. In order to prevent the unwanted effects of a monopoly, a federal agency, under the Bayh-Dole Act, has the right to march-in and force a recipient of a federal grant to non-exclusively license patented technology allowing market mechanisms to work. However, in this case the government has chosen not to exercise this right.
When scientists sequenced the human genome, their major goal was to better understand common diseases by discovering gene variants that predispose people to common diseases, develop personalized drugs, and detect patterns of adverse drug reactions. Despite investing billions of private sector and taxpayer’s dollars on personalized medicine, Myriad’s screening test provides one of the few successes.
At the heart of the controversy are different perspectives on what a gene patent means and what is actually patented. In March 2010, New York Federal Circuit Judge Sweet ruled that products of nature do not constitute patentable subject matter. Therefore, he ruled an incorrect earlier ruling led to the granting of Myriad’s BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene patents. In 1911, Parke-Davis received patent protection on synthetic adrenaline, which set a precedent that gave pharmaceutical companies an incentive to develop other synthetic forms of naturally occurring molecules. As a result, drug companies developed the lifesaving drugs such as interferon, insulin, and EPO.
In July 2011, the New York Court of Appeals decided that the plaintiff’s claims were not very convincing as three judges ruled 2-1 in favor of upholding Myriad‘s patents. Gene patents cover a three dimensional molecule, not the genetic code that forms proteins. After nearly a year of deliberations and piles of amicus curiae briefs, the decision came down to the determination that isolated gene molecules, are different than naturally occurring genes due to differences in bonding.
The plaintiffs claim the ownership of genes is immoral and that genes are a discovery not an invention. However, in patent law gene patents do not convey ownership of a gene; rather, they are a property right guaranteed by the Constitution, which temporarily excludes others from receiving financial rewards without a licensing agreement. Furthermore, the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, prohibits owning human genes.
The plaintiffs also claim that gene patents are a civil liberties issue because they undermine the free exchange of information that could prevent or delay other potential medical discoveries. Several studies, including two by the National Academy of Sciences, have not supported the claim that gene patents deter innovation. Besides, if the claims were true it would diminish the practicality of whole genome sequencing because of patent infringement. In contrast, genome sequencing is proliferating.
Myriad’s gene patents also provide temporary exclusive rights on the screening test, which excludes competition that could potentially lead to better service and lower pricing. Although health insurance covers the screening test, the plaintiffs further claim that many women at risk do not receive testing because they are uninsured or cannot afford the test. In order to prevent the unwanted effects of a monopoly, a federal agency, under the Bayh-Dole Act, has the right to march-in and force a recipient of a federal grant to non-exclusively license patented technology allowing market mechanisms to work. However, in this case the government has chosen not to exercise this right.
2012年3月12日星期一
Police charge teen in fatal shooting
James Chambers spent all of Saturday cleaning up from an overnight break-in and ransacking at his business and a neighboring one on West Franklin Boulevard.
The owner of Advantage Auto Sales hoped nothing worse would come of the crime, which involved the theft of a shotgun. But after learning that firearm had caused the death of a 22-year-old Gastonia man Saturday night, Chambers was reminded of a foreboding passage.
“Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay,” said Chambers, an associate minister at Soul’s Harbor Tabernacle in Gastonia. “I think that’s exactly what happened.”
Gastonia police charged 18-year-old Christopher Douglas “Doug” Guiton, of 1812 McFarland Ave., early Sunday morning in connection with that break-in and theft. On Monday, they also charged him with voluntary manslaughter for pulling the trigger of the shotgun that killed 22-year-old Larry Darnell Hoyle on Saturday night at the home where they both lived.
At the time of the shooting, Guiton was out on bond for three previous counts of breaking and entering and larceny, as well as charges of trespassing, drug possession and other misdemeanors, said assistant district attorney Robert Forbes. During a first appearance in District Court Monday, Judge Jim Jackson increased Guiton’s bond at the Gaston County Jail to $300,000 based on the new charges.
Guiton declined a court-appointed attorney and said he plans to hire his own lawyer. During the video arraignment, he broke down and sobbed as his aunt, Mary Sanders, pleaded for his bond to be lowered.
“This was an accident,” Sanders said through tears, speaking to Jenkins. “I know he knows what he done was wrong.”
Another cousin of Guiton’s reiterated that, and said Hoyle was Guiton’s “best friend.”
Forbes asked for a higher bond, while testifying to the grisly result of the shooting.
“Based on the photographs of the deceased I saw this morning, this was a close-range shot with a shotgun,” he said.
Guiton told Jenkins he had been living with his grandmother in Cherryville until he moved in with his aunt about five months ago. He is unemployed.
Guiton and his family members in the courtroom said ‘I love you’ to one another before the arraignment ended.
Police were called to 1812 McFarland Ave., about 9 p.m. Saturday. They arrived on the chaotic scene to find Hoyle lying on the living room floor with a fatal shotgun wound to the face.
The shooting was witnessed by Hoyle’s girlfriend, 18-year-old Samantha Walker, and their 6-month-old daughter, Desirae, was just a few feet away at the time. They are also residents of the house, along with a number of other extended family members.
When authorities arrived, no one at the house would initially give any details about what had happened, said Gastonia Police Sgt. Jimmy Arndt. But after intense questioning of multiple people there, Guiton admitted to accidentally pulling the trigger.
Once police realized how he had acquired the shotgun, they charged him with larceny of a firearm, breaking and entering, larceny after breaking and entering, and larceny of a motor vehicle.
The voluntary manslaughter charge was added after detectives conferred with the Gaston County District Attorney’s office.
Other suspects were also involved in the break-in with Guiton, and charges against them are pending, Arndt said.
The owner of Advantage Auto Sales hoped nothing worse would come of the crime, which involved the theft of a shotgun. But after learning that firearm had caused the death of a 22-year-old Gastonia man Saturday night, Chambers was reminded of a foreboding passage.
“Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay,” said Chambers, an associate minister at Soul’s Harbor Tabernacle in Gastonia. “I think that’s exactly what happened.”
Gastonia police charged 18-year-old Christopher Douglas “Doug” Guiton, of 1812 McFarland Ave., early Sunday morning in connection with that break-in and theft. On Monday, they also charged him with voluntary manslaughter for pulling the trigger of the shotgun that killed 22-year-old Larry Darnell Hoyle on Saturday night at the home where they both lived.
At the time of the shooting, Guiton was out on bond for three previous counts of breaking and entering and larceny, as well as charges of trespassing, drug possession and other misdemeanors, said assistant district attorney Robert Forbes. During a first appearance in District Court Monday, Judge Jim Jackson increased Guiton’s bond at the Gaston County Jail to $300,000 based on the new charges.
Guiton declined a court-appointed attorney and said he plans to hire his own lawyer. During the video arraignment, he broke down and sobbed as his aunt, Mary Sanders, pleaded for his bond to be lowered.
“This was an accident,” Sanders said through tears, speaking to Jenkins. “I know he knows what he done was wrong.”
Another cousin of Guiton’s reiterated that, and said Hoyle was Guiton’s “best friend.”
Forbes asked for a higher bond, while testifying to the grisly result of the shooting.
“Based on the photographs of the deceased I saw this morning, this was a close-range shot with a shotgun,” he said.
Guiton told Jenkins he had been living with his grandmother in Cherryville until he moved in with his aunt about five months ago. He is unemployed.
Guiton and his family members in the courtroom said ‘I love you’ to one another before the arraignment ended.
Police were called to 1812 McFarland Ave., about 9 p.m. Saturday. They arrived on the chaotic scene to find Hoyle lying on the living room floor with a fatal shotgun wound to the face.
The shooting was witnessed by Hoyle’s girlfriend, 18-year-old Samantha Walker, and their 6-month-old daughter, Desirae, was just a few feet away at the time. They are also residents of the house, along with a number of other extended family members.
When authorities arrived, no one at the house would initially give any details about what had happened, said Gastonia Police Sgt. Jimmy Arndt. But after intense questioning of multiple people there, Guiton admitted to accidentally pulling the trigger.
Once police realized how he had acquired the shotgun, they charged him with larceny of a firearm, breaking and entering, larceny after breaking and entering, and larceny of a motor vehicle.
The voluntary manslaughter charge was added after detectives conferred with the Gaston County District Attorney’s office.
Other suspects were also involved in the break-in with Guiton, and charges against them are pending, Arndt said.
2012年3月11日星期日
Lenore 'Gundy' Costello has taught since 1945
When Caroline Hitchcock and her former Girl Scout pals started getting married in the late 1960s, they received the casserole dishes, Jell-O molds and fondue sets every modern housewife needed.
Lenore "Gundy" Costello gave them hammers, nails and pliers.
"She wanted us to learn how to take care of ourselves," recalls Hitchcock, of Port Orange. "She was very much ahead of her time."
Now 95, the Girl Scout cheerleader everyone knows simply as "Gundy" is a sharp, merry, agile inspiration to the decades of girls she's known and trained in the ways of the woods and the world. In her 67th year in Scouting, she now serves on the board of the development committee for the recruitment of new members, a grand title that makes her chuckle.
It's a volunteer position. She officially retired from Scouting in 1976, but it didn't exactly take.
Through the years, she has backpacked with girls on the Appalachian Trail, taught countless young women how to pitch tents and sing songs around a campfire, and managed decades' worth of cookie sales.
But along the way, she demonstrated by example the value of a college education, the humor and dedication required for a happy marriage, and the confidence that comes from breaking the mold.
"My job as a leader and as a CEO was to instill in girls the skills that would carry them through life and make them solid citizens," she says from her tidy 1920s-era home overlooking a lake in Lake Alfred. She and her husband, George, moved there in the early 1940s. They had no children other than the scores of girls who hiked into their hearts.
"My girls learned courage and self-confidence," she says.
The world was a different place when she became a Scout leader in 1945, before fears of lawsuits and obsessive worries over safety. She recalls turning eight older Scouts loose in the Polk County wilderness to establish a campsite and fend for themselves for a week.
"I thought these kids needed to take a few risks, learn leadership," she says. "They didn't know it, but I checked on the campsite every night. I never turned on my flashlight so they wouldn't know I was there."
The girls did just fine.
Gundy was born Lenore VanGundia in Sycamore, Ohio, then a small town without a Girl Scout troop. She received her nickname while a student at Heidelberg University in Ohio, and graduated in 1938 with a double major in sociology and biology.
She met her husband when she went to work for the Red Cross and he was on its national staff. George Costello was a Boy Scout leader, and when the couple moved to Polk County, the Girl Scout leadership enticed Gundy to get involved, too.
Through the years, George accompanied her on most trips, and encouraged her to take positions of increasing responsibility in Scouting, including acting as CEO for the local council. He died in 1997 at the age of 88, but had been her most vigorous supporter – most of the time.
"Ever once in a while," Gundy says, "I would come home from a tough day and say, 'That's it! That's my last day!'
"George would say, 'Did you tell them that? No? Well, good, because they might have said OK.' "
Humor comes naturally to Gundy; she throws back her head with abandon when she laughs, which is often. She's been known to play good-hearted jokes at her church, embarrassing the pastor. She frequently is visited by her girls, many now grandmothers, serving them lunches of homemade pimiento cheese and Jell-O salad.
Hitchcock, who was a Brownie at age 8 and continued in Scouting through high school, says Gundy taught her to canoe, backpack, knit and enjoy show tunes. She remains an avid backpacker, and her daughter and granddaughters followed her into Scouting.
But, she says, she learned more than nature skills from Gundy.
"She really taught us to protect the environment, before anyone was doing that," she says. "She passed on to us so much information about diversity and bringing people together.
"She was so much fun, always laughing."
In 1956, Gundy was one of the first women in the United States to travel to another country – in her case, the West Indies -- to teach the basics of camping. She later traveled to Switzerland, Puerto Rico and elsewhere for the American Camping Association to help camps worldwide gain accreditation. She remains friends with the women she met.
She continued teaching new generations of Girl Scouts about camping well into her 80s.
She also was instrumental in opening Camp Wildwood, sometimes going door to door to ask landowners to sell their property in Sumter County, about 75 miles northeast of Tampa. The piney woods, palmettos, live oaks and marshlands of natural Florida have been preserved, but Scouts now enjoy a pool, horseback riding and a climbing wall.
Back in Gundy's day, the climbing was a bit more rustic. In the 1950s, she and George took several troops up Mount Le Conte, in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee.
Five years ago, at the age of 90, Gundy decided to make one last trek up the mountain. She took "three nice young people" with her, mainly because she was worried she'd get hurt and require a rescue from strangers, a terrible bother.
"When I made it to the top, a man ran up to me and hugged me and kissed me!" she says. "I said, 'Hmm, this is interesting!' I guess people had heard about the old lady on the mountain."
She says Mount Le Conte was much rougher in the old days; nowadays, there are cables to hold onto.
One thing that had not changed was the beauty of the spot. She took a few quiet moments to think about the others with whom she'd shared the view, her beloved George and all those girls who'd come and gone. She allowed herself a bittersweet moment, but didn't dwell on it too long.
Lenore "Gundy" Costello gave them hammers, nails and pliers.
"She wanted us to learn how to take care of ourselves," recalls Hitchcock, of Port Orange. "She was very much ahead of her time."
Now 95, the Girl Scout cheerleader everyone knows simply as "Gundy" is a sharp, merry, agile inspiration to the decades of girls she's known and trained in the ways of the woods and the world. In her 67th year in Scouting, she now serves on the board of the development committee for the recruitment of new members, a grand title that makes her chuckle.
It's a volunteer position. She officially retired from Scouting in 1976, but it didn't exactly take.
Through the years, she has backpacked with girls on the Appalachian Trail, taught countless young women how to pitch tents and sing songs around a campfire, and managed decades' worth of cookie sales.
But along the way, she demonstrated by example the value of a college education, the humor and dedication required for a happy marriage, and the confidence that comes from breaking the mold.
"My job as a leader and as a CEO was to instill in girls the skills that would carry them through life and make them solid citizens," she says from her tidy 1920s-era home overlooking a lake in Lake Alfred. She and her husband, George, moved there in the early 1940s. They had no children other than the scores of girls who hiked into their hearts.
"My girls learned courage and self-confidence," she says.
The world was a different place when she became a Scout leader in 1945, before fears of lawsuits and obsessive worries over safety. She recalls turning eight older Scouts loose in the Polk County wilderness to establish a campsite and fend for themselves for a week.
"I thought these kids needed to take a few risks, learn leadership," she says. "They didn't know it, but I checked on the campsite every night. I never turned on my flashlight so they wouldn't know I was there."
The girls did just fine.
Gundy was born Lenore VanGundia in Sycamore, Ohio, then a small town without a Girl Scout troop. She received her nickname while a student at Heidelberg University in Ohio, and graduated in 1938 with a double major in sociology and biology.
She met her husband when she went to work for the Red Cross and he was on its national staff. George Costello was a Boy Scout leader, and when the couple moved to Polk County, the Girl Scout leadership enticed Gundy to get involved, too.
Through the years, George accompanied her on most trips, and encouraged her to take positions of increasing responsibility in Scouting, including acting as CEO for the local council. He died in 1997 at the age of 88, but had been her most vigorous supporter – most of the time.
"Ever once in a while," Gundy says, "I would come home from a tough day and say, 'That's it! That's my last day!'
"George would say, 'Did you tell them that? No? Well, good, because they might have said OK.' "
Humor comes naturally to Gundy; she throws back her head with abandon when she laughs, which is often. She's been known to play good-hearted jokes at her church, embarrassing the pastor. She frequently is visited by her girls, many now grandmothers, serving them lunches of homemade pimiento cheese and Jell-O salad.
Hitchcock, who was a Brownie at age 8 and continued in Scouting through high school, says Gundy taught her to canoe, backpack, knit and enjoy show tunes. She remains an avid backpacker, and her daughter and granddaughters followed her into Scouting.
But, she says, she learned more than nature skills from Gundy.
"She really taught us to protect the environment, before anyone was doing that," she says. "She passed on to us so much information about diversity and bringing people together.
"She was so much fun, always laughing."
In 1956, Gundy was one of the first women in the United States to travel to another country – in her case, the West Indies -- to teach the basics of camping. She later traveled to Switzerland, Puerto Rico and elsewhere for the American Camping Association to help camps worldwide gain accreditation. She remains friends with the women she met.
She continued teaching new generations of Girl Scouts about camping well into her 80s.
She also was instrumental in opening Camp Wildwood, sometimes going door to door to ask landowners to sell their property in Sumter County, about 75 miles northeast of Tampa. The piney woods, palmettos, live oaks and marshlands of natural Florida have been preserved, but Scouts now enjoy a pool, horseback riding and a climbing wall.
Back in Gundy's day, the climbing was a bit more rustic. In the 1950s, she and George took several troops up Mount Le Conte, in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee.
Five years ago, at the age of 90, Gundy decided to make one last trek up the mountain. She took "three nice young people" with her, mainly because she was worried she'd get hurt and require a rescue from strangers, a terrible bother.
"When I made it to the top, a man ran up to me and hugged me and kissed me!" she says. "I said, 'Hmm, this is interesting!' I guess people had heard about the old lady on the mountain."
She says Mount Le Conte was much rougher in the old days; nowadays, there are cables to hold onto.
One thing that had not changed was the beauty of the spot. She took a few quiet moments to think about the others with whom she'd shared the view, her beloved George and all those girls who'd come and gone. She allowed herself a bittersweet moment, but didn't dwell on it too long.
2012年3月8日星期四
NY company growing mushrooms as packing material
Turns out that mushrooms — great in soups and salads — also make decent packaging material.
Mushrooms are a key ingredient in the pale, soft blocks produced by the thousands in an upstate New York plant that are used to cushion products ranging from Dell Inc. servers to furniture for Crate and Barrel.
More precisely, the packaging blocks are made with mycelium — the hidden "roots" of the mushroom that usually thread beneath dirt or wood. Two former mechanical engineering and design students, Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, figured out how to grow those cottony filaments in a way that binds together seed husks or other agricultural byproducts into preset packaging shapes.
Their 5-year-old company, Ecovative Design, has a toe-hold in the increasingly lucrative market for eco-friendly alternatives to plastic foams — and their business is growing like shiitakes on a damp log. Bayer and McIntyre are already expanding their line for everything from footwear to car bumpers.
"We want to be the Dow or DuPont of this century," Bayer said.
If the aspiration sounds grandiose, consider that six years ago Bayer and McIntyre were Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students growing fungus under their beds for a class project. Today, the young entrepreneurs are more than doubling their production space and recently announced a deal with Sealed Air Corp., the packaging giant known for Bubble Wrap.
Not bad for a product that grows itself.
Workers at Ecovative inoculate mycelium into pasteurized bits of seed husks or plant stalks, then place the mix into clear plastic molds shaped like the desired packaging pieces, such as a cradle-shaped mold for a wine bottle. The mix is covered for about five days as millions of mycelium strands grow around and through the feedstock, acting as a kind of glue. The piece is heat dried to kill the fungus, insuring that mushrooms can't sprout from it. Since the mycelium is cloned, the product does not include spores, which can trigger allergies.
"It's low-tech biotech," Bayer said.
Bayer noticed mycelium's "stretchy" properties as a kid growing up on a Vermont farm. As students, he and McIntyre started with mushroom-based insulation, but the pair switched to packaging material because it seemed a better business bet. They experimented with common varieties like the oyster mushrooms before hitting on just the right (secret) mix.
The company moved several years ago to a 10,000-square-foot facility in Green Island that still has the feel of a startup: an old industrial asparagus blancher pasteurizes the feedstock, and the mycelium is applied with a machine that once put chocolate chips on cookies. McIntyre's pet chinchilla, Audrey, rolls around the offices in a plastic pet ball.
Mushrooms are a key ingredient in the pale, soft blocks produced by the thousands in an upstate New York plant that are used to cushion products ranging from Dell Inc. servers to furniture for Crate and Barrel.
More precisely, the packaging blocks are made with mycelium — the hidden "roots" of the mushroom that usually thread beneath dirt or wood. Two former mechanical engineering and design students, Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, figured out how to grow those cottony filaments in a way that binds together seed husks or other agricultural byproducts into preset packaging shapes.
Their 5-year-old company, Ecovative Design, has a toe-hold in the increasingly lucrative market for eco-friendly alternatives to plastic foams — and their business is growing like shiitakes on a damp log. Bayer and McIntyre are already expanding their line for everything from footwear to car bumpers.
"We want to be the Dow or DuPont of this century," Bayer said.
If the aspiration sounds grandiose, consider that six years ago Bayer and McIntyre were Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students growing fungus under their beds for a class project. Today, the young entrepreneurs are more than doubling their production space and recently announced a deal with Sealed Air Corp., the packaging giant known for Bubble Wrap.
Not bad for a product that grows itself.
Workers at Ecovative inoculate mycelium into pasteurized bits of seed husks or plant stalks, then place the mix into clear plastic molds shaped like the desired packaging pieces, such as a cradle-shaped mold for a wine bottle. The mix is covered for about five days as millions of mycelium strands grow around and through the feedstock, acting as a kind of glue. The piece is heat dried to kill the fungus, insuring that mushrooms can't sprout from it. Since the mycelium is cloned, the product does not include spores, which can trigger allergies.
"It's low-tech biotech," Bayer said.
Bayer noticed mycelium's "stretchy" properties as a kid growing up on a Vermont farm. As students, he and McIntyre started with mushroom-based insulation, but the pair switched to packaging material because it seemed a better business bet. They experimented with common varieties like the oyster mushrooms before hitting on just the right (secret) mix.
The company moved several years ago to a 10,000-square-foot facility in Green Island that still has the feel of a startup: an old industrial asparagus blancher pasteurizes the feedstock, and the mycelium is applied with a machine that once put chocolate chips on cookies. McIntyre's pet chinchilla, Audrey, rolls around the offices in a plastic pet ball.
2012年3月7日星期三
Bronze plaques for Legends project ready for spring installation
The innovative thinking that made the city of Algonac great during its boat-building days still shows up in the hearts and minds of community leaders today.
It shows in the neighborly spirit that has made Algonac a hospitality port for the regal tall ships that sail in each year. It shows in the construction of the Veterans Monument and the First Responders Monument. It also shows in the statues of boating giants, Chris Smith and Gar Wood, constructed in 2010.
Aptly called the Legends of Algonac, the work of the project to highlight those behind the famed Chris-Craft Boats is still not yet finished. The plaques that will be installed along the base of the statues have taken more than a year to be completed. According to community leader Pete Beauregard, the plaques are expected to be completed this spring. In the meantime, the larger-than-life statues at Algonac City Park go un-named.
"We are into the second generation of people who have grown up after the Chris-Craft days," said Beauregard, also co-chair of the Legends of Algonac. "Now, when they look at the statues, it's the same as when we're looking at a soldier in the Civil War. They don't know who they are."
The four plaques that will be fastened on each side of the platform will tell the story of the days of the Chris-Craft boat building days, when the two men rose to fame as innovators of the wood pleasure boats and vessels that would break all records for speed.
Artist Sergei Mitrofanov went to work on the bronze plaques after the dedication of the statues two summers ago. Mitrofanov used the same artistic genius he poured into the two boating icons for the plaques. The molds have been made and the plaques are at the foundry. Mitrofanov said the work will be finished by the end of March, but they won't be installed until sometime in May.
"We are waiting for warm temperatures and then they'll do the installation," he said.
Beauregard said it was after a long series of back and forth messages, tweaking the wording and images on the plaques until they were just right, that the panels were completed.
"I like the wording," he said. "It says what there is to say."
Two of the plaques have images of the famous Miss America X racer and Gar Wood and the other has a Chris Craft with Chris Smith riding in one of his pleasure boats. Former Chris-Craft executive and Legends Chair Herb Pocklington, along with Beauregard, have brought the first part of the Legends project almost to fruition. A Legends of Algonac Hall of Fame is somewhere in Algonac's future, where many of the artifacts from the Algonac/Clay Museum and items donated by the descendants of Smith and Wood will be displayed.
The Algonac-Clay Historical Society keeps all of the remnants of Smith and Wood safe within the walls of the museum on Pointe Tremble Road near Smith Street. The group also takes care of three antique boats, including the record breaking Miss America X.
It shows in the neighborly spirit that has made Algonac a hospitality port for the regal tall ships that sail in each year. It shows in the construction of the Veterans Monument and the First Responders Monument. It also shows in the statues of boating giants, Chris Smith and Gar Wood, constructed in 2010.
Aptly called the Legends of Algonac, the work of the project to highlight those behind the famed Chris-Craft Boats is still not yet finished. The plaques that will be installed along the base of the statues have taken more than a year to be completed. According to community leader Pete Beauregard, the plaques are expected to be completed this spring. In the meantime, the larger-than-life statues at Algonac City Park go un-named.
"We are into the second generation of people who have grown up after the Chris-Craft days," said Beauregard, also co-chair of the Legends of Algonac. "Now, when they look at the statues, it's the same as when we're looking at a soldier in the Civil War. They don't know who they are."
The four plaques that will be fastened on each side of the platform will tell the story of the days of the Chris-Craft boat building days, when the two men rose to fame as innovators of the wood pleasure boats and vessels that would break all records for speed.
Artist Sergei Mitrofanov went to work on the bronze plaques after the dedication of the statues two summers ago. Mitrofanov used the same artistic genius he poured into the two boating icons for the plaques. The molds have been made and the plaques are at the foundry. Mitrofanov said the work will be finished by the end of March, but they won't be installed until sometime in May.
"We are waiting for warm temperatures and then they'll do the installation," he said.
Beauregard said it was after a long series of back and forth messages, tweaking the wording and images on the plaques until they were just right, that the panels were completed.
"I like the wording," he said. "It says what there is to say."
Two of the plaques have images of the famous Miss America X racer and Gar Wood and the other has a Chris Craft with Chris Smith riding in one of his pleasure boats. Former Chris-Craft executive and Legends Chair Herb Pocklington, along with Beauregard, have brought the first part of the Legends project almost to fruition. A Legends of Algonac Hall of Fame is somewhere in Algonac's future, where many of the artifacts from the Algonac/Clay Museum and items donated by the descendants of Smith and Wood will be displayed.
The Algonac-Clay Historical Society keeps all of the remnants of Smith and Wood safe within the walls of the museum on Pointe Tremble Road near Smith Street. The group also takes care of three antique boats, including the record breaking Miss America X.
2012年3月6日星期二
Sometimes You Just Can’t Get There from Here
A common issue these days is that shops are trying to squeeze more performance out of their existing gaging. What were once ±0.002-inch tolerances have gone to ±0.0002- or even ±0.0001-inch tolerances. Many users think all they need to do to improve performance is replace their old, 0.0001-inch-resolution dial or digital indicator with a new, high-performance digital indicator that might read to 50 or even 10 microinches. Unfortunately, this replacement is likely to cause gage operators to lose faith in the gaging equipment they have used for the past 20 years or more.
It’s a whole other world when it comes to making measurements in the millionths. There are many hidden factors that must be considered when going from 100-microinch resolution to 50-, 20- or even 10-microinch resolution. Let’s look at a fairly common test case to see what pitfalls we might find.
The comparative snap gage is one of the most common gages. It is the second step up on the ladder of dimensional OD measurement. Compared to simple micrometers, it is an improvement because it measures quickly and eliminates operator influences common to handheld micrometers. The snap gage is virtually hands-off when making a comparative measurement. It has a very repeatable gaging force, and it uses its backstop to position the part at the same location.
Snap gages are typically equipped with a dial indicator that has a 0.001- or 0.0001-inch graduation. For ±0.002-inch tolerances, this snap gage is a good solution. However, the ±0.002-inch tolerances that were widely accepted in the past have now become ±0.0001- or ±0.005-inch tolerances. With a 0.0001-inch grad on the dial indicator, a lot of the indicator range is not being used. Therefore, it becomes difficult for the operator to judge whether the part is good or bad. Combine that with errors in the gage itself, and it becomes difficult for operators to make good measurements.
Resolution alone will disqualify dial indicators from collecting data for pre-process or statistical process control. Digital indicators should be used for improving gage performance because of their enhanced capabilities. It is simpler to upgrade to the latest indicator with higher resolution.
Now, say a shop purchases a new indicator to go on a 10-year-old gage. All of a sudden, operators are bringing gages to the repair department because they don’t repeat like they used to. The operators may even question the performance of the indicator on the snap gage. In this case, the digital indicator can magnify and show the errors of a gage that was not built to perform such high-resolution measurements.
On a snap gage, the original anvil parallelism—perfectly acceptable for a 0.0001-inch grad indicator—will begin showing as repeat errors. Most snap gages with dial indicators have a parallel tolerance of 0.0001 inch on the whole surface of the anvil. On a dial indicator, you would be hard-pressed to see the movement within one graduation. However, when using a digital indicator with 20 microinches of resolution, that 0.0001-inch parallelism could be 5 flips of the digit (or more) simply by placing the part on different locations on the anvils. That would make discriminating operators quickly lose confidence in their gage.
There are many more errors that could also be magnified with the higher resolution. These include part geometry, dirt, temperature, deflection due to gaging force, and tooling marks. However, there is only one way to ensure that this step up will work: do a thorough gage study first. Put your best readout on the gage. Do repeat tests, do GR&Rs, and analyze the results. If the gage cannot make the measurement, the analysis will be clear. It will prevent you from using bad gages on the shop floor only to bring them back later on.
It’s a whole other world when it comes to making measurements in the millionths. There are many hidden factors that must be considered when going from 100-microinch resolution to 50-, 20- or even 10-microinch resolution. Let’s look at a fairly common test case to see what pitfalls we might find.
The comparative snap gage is one of the most common gages. It is the second step up on the ladder of dimensional OD measurement. Compared to simple micrometers, it is an improvement because it measures quickly and eliminates operator influences common to handheld micrometers. The snap gage is virtually hands-off when making a comparative measurement. It has a very repeatable gaging force, and it uses its backstop to position the part at the same location.
Snap gages are typically equipped with a dial indicator that has a 0.001- or 0.0001-inch graduation. For ±0.002-inch tolerances, this snap gage is a good solution. However, the ±0.002-inch tolerances that were widely accepted in the past have now become ±0.0001- or ±0.005-inch tolerances. With a 0.0001-inch grad on the dial indicator, a lot of the indicator range is not being used. Therefore, it becomes difficult for the operator to judge whether the part is good or bad. Combine that with errors in the gage itself, and it becomes difficult for operators to make good measurements.
Resolution alone will disqualify dial indicators from collecting data for pre-process or statistical process control. Digital indicators should be used for improving gage performance because of their enhanced capabilities. It is simpler to upgrade to the latest indicator with higher resolution.
Now, say a shop purchases a new indicator to go on a 10-year-old gage. All of a sudden, operators are bringing gages to the repair department because they don’t repeat like they used to. The operators may even question the performance of the indicator on the snap gage. In this case, the digital indicator can magnify and show the errors of a gage that was not built to perform such high-resolution measurements.
On a snap gage, the original anvil parallelism—perfectly acceptable for a 0.0001-inch grad indicator—will begin showing as repeat errors. Most snap gages with dial indicators have a parallel tolerance of 0.0001 inch on the whole surface of the anvil. On a dial indicator, you would be hard-pressed to see the movement within one graduation. However, when using a digital indicator with 20 microinches of resolution, that 0.0001-inch parallelism could be 5 flips of the digit (or more) simply by placing the part on different locations on the anvils. That would make discriminating operators quickly lose confidence in their gage.
There are many more errors that could also be magnified with the higher resolution. These include part geometry, dirt, temperature, deflection due to gaging force, and tooling marks. However, there is only one way to ensure that this step up will work: do a thorough gage study first. Put your best readout on the gage. Do repeat tests, do GR&Rs, and analyze the results. If the gage cannot make the measurement, the analysis will be clear. It will prevent you from using bad gages on the shop floor only to bring them back later on.
2012年3月5日星期一
After 13 years, soy protein comes alive
Vancouver-based Burcon NutraScience will see its first product in commercial production this summer after 13 years of research and development of plant-based proteins.
U.S. food-processing giant Archer Daniels Midland is tooling a factory in Illinois to produce Burcon's Clarisoy 100 - a flavourless, odourless protein derived from soy beans - in commercial quantities for use in sports and recovery drinks.
The road to earning revenue has been bumpy. An agreement between ADM and Burcon to develop commercial applications for canola-based proteins Nutratein, Supertein and Puratein failed despite eight years of trying.
The development agreement with ADM for the canola-based proteins expires today.
But a 20-year licence agreement with ADM for Clarisoy signed last spring is ready to bear fruit, Burcon president Johann Tergesen said.
Clarisoy is the first Burcon product to go into commercial production.
Burcon will receive a percentage of revenue from ADM sales of Clarisoy as royalties beginning this year, after posting operating losses of $8.4 million, $6.6 million and $4.8 million over the past three years.
The company recorded just under $5 million in losses over the first nine months of its current fiscal year, leaving it with a cumulative deficit of $51.8 million.
Archer Daniels Midland is working with several "global" beverage companies to create protein-fortified drinks, according to ADM spokesperson Courtney Kingery .
The company confirmed that a new production facility is on schedule to produce commercial quantities of Clarisoy to be available this summer. ADM is providing sample size quantities to companies for product development.
ADM taste-tested a Clarisoy-fortified fruit drink at the Institute of Food Technologists trade show last summer and the product earned a nomination for a Food Ingredients Excellence Award, according to Kingery .
Clarisoy is a good fit for the beverage industry because it is water soluble, transparent and carries no "beany" taste. It is also heat stable and won't precipitate into solid particles in lowpH drinks, such as acidic fruit juices.
"(Clarisoy) is able to be used in a new group of products that soy protein has never reached before, such as sport drinks, lemonades and fruit juices," Kingery said.
Tergesen is convinced that Burcon is poised to benefit from a huge expansion in the production of functional foods - packaged foods that convey some health benefit.
"When you are looking at labels, protein is the one thing you want to see more of," Tergesen said.
Health-conscious consumers are avoiding additives and nutrients such as fat, sugar, salt and carbohydrates.
Burcon operates in a dark corner of the food business, invisible to most consumers. We know the big brand-name companies that make sports drinks. But who knows who makes the potassium citrate or the acacia gum that are among its ingredients?
Companies such as ADM manufacture the ingredients needed to make readyto-eat foods, while researchbased companies search for the processes to tease those ingredients from commodity crops such as corn and soy - and in Burcon's case, canola and now peas.
"We call it the subterranean world of food ingredients, because people just don't think about how massive that industry is on a global basis," he said.
Burcon's lab in Winnipeg is dedicated to developing processes for isolating protein from plant sources and until recently they were focused on canola. Canada is the world's leading producer of canola and the seed meal that is left after oil extraction is an inexpensive and incredibly abundant resource.
"Canola has been moved very much to the back burner," Tergesen said.
In addition to continued work with soy, Burcon is in talks with a partner to commercialize a pea-based protein it calls Peazazz.
U.S. food-processing giant Archer Daniels Midland is tooling a factory in Illinois to produce Burcon's Clarisoy 100 - a flavourless, odourless protein derived from soy beans - in commercial quantities for use in sports and recovery drinks.
The road to earning revenue has been bumpy. An agreement between ADM and Burcon to develop commercial applications for canola-based proteins Nutratein, Supertein and Puratein failed despite eight years of trying.
The development agreement with ADM for the canola-based proteins expires today.
But a 20-year licence agreement with ADM for Clarisoy signed last spring is ready to bear fruit, Burcon president Johann Tergesen said.
Clarisoy is the first Burcon product to go into commercial production.
Burcon will receive a percentage of revenue from ADM sales of Clarisoy as royalties beginning this year, after posting operating losses of $8.4 million, $6.6 million and $4.8 million over the past three years.
The company recorded just under $5 million in losses over the first nine months of its current fiscal year, leaving it with a cumulative deficit of $51.8 million.
Archer Daniels Midland is working with several "global" beverage companies to create protein-fortified drinks, according to ADM spokesperson Courtney Kingery .
The company confirmed that a new production facility is on schedule to produce commercial quantities of Clarisoy to be available this summer. ADM is providing sample size quantities to companies for product development.
ADM taste-tested a Clarisoy-fortified fruit drink at the Institute of Food Technologists trade show last summer and the product earned a nomination for a Food Ingredients Excellence Award, according to Kingery .
Clarisoy is a good fit for the beverage industry because it is water soluble, transparent and carries no "beany" taste. It is also heat stable and won't precipitate into solid particles in lowpH drinks, such as acidic fruit juices.
"(Clarisoy) is able to be used in a new group of products that soy protein has never reached before, such as sport drinks, lemonades and fruit juices," Kingery said.
Tergesen is convinced that Burcon is poised to benefit from a huge expansion in the production of functional foods - packaged foods that convey some health benefit.
"When you are looking at labels, protein is the one thing you want to see more of," Tergesen said.
Health-conscious consumers are avoiding additives and nutrients such as fat, sugar, salt and carbohydrates.
Burcon operates in a dark corner of the food business, invisible to most consumers. We know the big brand-name companies that make sports drinks. But who knows who makes the potassium citrate or the acacia gum that are among its ingredients?
Companies such as ADM manufacture the ingredients needed to make readyto-eat foods, while researchbased companies search for the processes to tease those ingredients from commodity crops such as corn and soy - and in Burcon's case, canola and now peas.
"We call it the subterranean world of food ingredients, because people just don't think about how massive that industry is on a global basis," he said.
Burcon's lab in Winnipeg is dedicated to developing processes for isolating protein from plant sources and until recently they were focused on canola. Canada is the world's leading producer of canola and the seed meal that is left after oil extraction is an inexpensive and incredibly abundant resource.
"Canola has been moved very much to the back burner," Tergesen said.
In addition to continued work with soy, Burcon is in talks with a partner to commercialize a pea-based protein it calls Peazazz.
2012年3月4日星期日
Film shows Navy SEAL's dedication
It’s not too often that an action movie moves grown men to the sniffles but I’ll wager “Act of Valor” had lots of big tough guys wiping tears away in the dark.
I mostly missed the reviews before the movie’s opening weekend but I did know that the producers broke the mold of action movie-making by casting real Navy Seals in the movie instead of actors and stuntmen. I didn’t really think it would work too well myself. Lots of big-time movie critics felt the same way.
My wife had seen the reviews and interviews with the principals in the movie and she suggested we go see it on opening weekend. It shocked me that my wife was actually asking to go see an action movie and I couldn’t pass that opportunity up. We were overdue for a date night anyway so we went to the show.
The Navy Seals have been riding high since they took down Bin Laden last year and I guess it’s just amazing that we hadn’t been blessed with a movie about this elite group before now.
The movie opens with members of the team grabbing precious family time just prior to a deployment. From there things quickly jump into high gear with the team chasing bad guys bent on terrorism toward the U.S. all over the globe, finally ending up on our very borders.
The movie gave a glimpse at the way our country will fight its battles in the future. We’re already doing it, it’s a much more personal and pinpoint battlefield that holds those actually responsible for evil accountable. I like that idea a lot better than a big battlefield with innocents and uncommitted soldiers dying for poorly defined goals.
The acting in this movie didn’t bother me even a little bit after the action got under way. The director understood that emotion can be portrayed in ways other than dialogue delivered perfectly. The camera and story can more than compensate when you do it right just as the opposite can be true of accomplished Broadway actors capable of delivering a one-man performance on a barren stage.
The movie drives home the idea that in the future our military professionals will exemplify valor and be ready to give up everything for their fellow countrymen. The idea of a few doing a lot for many is a heavy idea and it should give us all pause to think about the debt we owe our elite military units.
We’re fortunate to have a group of elite military, the Air Commandos of the 27th Special Operations Wing, living right here in our own community. My position has afforded me an opportunity to interact with these fine men and women on a frequent basis and I always come away impressed at their dedication and professionalism and their love for country and family.
The type of mission they perform for our country necessitates that we won’t know what these neighbors in uniform do for us everyday. We won’t get a DVD of their mission to view at our leisure but trust that their sacrifices are great.
Thank God that they have accepted the call to dedicate themselves to what they do for a living, then find a way to serve them and their families here at home.
I mostly missed the reviews before the movie’s opening weekend but I did know that the producers broke the mold of action movie-making by casting real Navy Seals in the movie instead of actors and stuntmen. I didn’t really think it would work too well myself. Lots of big-time movie critics felt the same way.
My wife had seen the reviews and interviews with the principals in the movie and she suggested we go see it on opening weekend. It shocked me that my wife was actually asking to go see an action movie and I couldn’t pass that opportunity up. We were overdue for a date night anyway so we went to the show.
The Navy Seals have been riding high since they took down Bin Laden last year and I guess it’s just amazing that we hadn’t been blessed with a movie about this elite group before now.
The movie opens with members of the team grabbing precious family time just prior to a deployment. From there things quickly jump into high gear with the team chasing bad guys bent on terrorism toward the U.S. all over the globe, finally ending up on our very borders.
The movie gave a glimpse at the way our country will fight its battles in the future. We’re already doing it, it’s a much more personal and pinpoint battlefield that holds those actually responsible for evil accountable. I like that idea a lot better than a big battlefield with innocents and uncommitted soldiers dying for poorly defined goals.
The acting in this movie didn’t bother me even a little bit after the action got under way. The director understood that emotion can be portrayed in ways other than dialogue delivered perfectly. The camera and story can more than compensate when you do it right just as the opposite can be true of accomplished Broadway actors capable of delivering a one-man performance on a barren stage.
The movie drives home the idea that in the future our military professionals will exemplify valor and be ready to give up everything for their fellow countrymen. The idea of a few doing a lot for many is a heavy idea and it should give us all pause to think about the debt we owe our elite military units.
We’re fortunate to have a group of elite military, the Air Commandos of the 27th Special Operations Wing, living right here in our own community. My position has afforded me an opportunity to interact with these fine men and women on a frequent basis and I always come away impressed at their dedication and professionalism and their love for country and family.
The type of mission they perform for our country necessitates that we won’t know what these neighbors in uniform do for us everyday. We won’t get a DVD of their mission to view at our leisure but trust that their sacrifices are great.
Thank God that they have accepted the call to dedicate themselves to what they do for a living, then find a way to serve them and their families here at home.
2012年3月1日星期四
Case of the Faulty Oscillator
I was working for an avionics maintenance facility where a variety of military avionics systems were tested, repaired, and overhauled. I was part of the team that provided engineering support for the repair floor. My job was to troubleshoot test software and hardware, provide tooling, and sometimes solve problems with incurable chemical concoctions. I had to solve the problems that no one else could .
On one assignment, I had to handle an unusual problem with a temperature-controlled oscillator that was being used as a radar receiver. The automated test program that was testing the receiver reported sideband amplitudes well above the maximum test limit. The technologists had no idea why.
They removed the faulty oscillator and replaced it with another, but the problem persisted. They removed the oscillator from the receiver and performed a bench test using a power supply and a spectrum analyzer. The bench test produced perfect results on both test oscillators, with all sideband values within limits. The oscillator was then reinstalled into the receiver, and the problem returned.
They experimented on the bench with varying the load and heat cycling the oscillator, to no avail. When the problem came to me, I performed their testing methodology, and it appeared to all of us that the only thing left to examine was the radar receiver power supply. I asked the technologists if they had checked the quality of the power supply. Obviously annoyed that I assumed they hadn't checked the power supply, they assured me that it was nice and flat, like all DC power supplies should be. They went further to say that the ripple value was in tolerance, as well. I felt a bit apprehensive about posing further power-supply inquires.
We then explored the possibility that there might be a grounding issue, since the frequency of the oscillator was quite high. We moved the power supply from the receiver and tried a variety of grounding techniques, with no success. After some time working this job, you get an intuitive sense of where to look.
On one assignment, I had to handle an unusual problem with a temperature-controlled oscillator that was being used as a radar receiver. The automated test program that was testing the receiver reported sideband amplitudes well above the maximum test limit. The technologists had no idea why.
They removed the faulty oscillator and replaced it with another, but the problem persisted. They removed the oscillator from the receiver and performed a bench test using a power supply and a spectrum analyzer. The bench test produced perfect results on both test oscillators, with all sideband values within limits. The oscillator was then reinstalled into the receiver, and the problem returned.
They experimented on the bench with varying the load and heat cycling the oscillator, to no avail. When the problem came to me, I performed their testing methodology, and it appeared to all of us that the only thing left to examine was the radar receiver power supply. I asked the technologists if they had checked the quality of the power supply. Obviously annoyed that I assumed they hadn't checked the power supply, they assured me that it was nice and flat, like all DC power supplies should be. They went further to say that the ripple value was in tolerance, as well. I felt a bit apprehensive about posing further power-supply inquires.
We then explored the possibility that there might be a grounding issue, since the frequency of the oscillator was quite high. We moved the power supply from the receiver and tried a variety of grounding techniques, with no success. After some time working this job, you get an intuitive sense of where to look.
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