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মঙ্গলবার, ৩০ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Deal of the Day ? Loaded 15.6? Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Core i7 1080p laptop
LogicBUY’s Deal for Sunday is the configurable?15.6″ Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition Laptop for $789.99. ?Starting configuration: 3rd gen Core i7 CPU 8GB 1600MHz RAM 1TB Hard Drive, 32GB mSATA SSD, 8-in-1 card reader 1080p display and 2GB Radeon HD 7730M discrete graphics ?Four USB 3.0 ports, HDMI v1.4a HD webcam Waves MaxxAudio 4 and [...]
সোমবার, ২৯ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3: Yet Another Boring New Android Slate
Just in case you thought Samsung didn't offer enough variety in its tablet range, its gone ahead and launched yet another. This 7-inch Galaxy Tab 3 is brand new and, um, like virtually every other Samsung tablet that's gone before it.
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Japan's ANA takes its first 787 back into the air since grounding
TOKYO (Reuters) - All Nippon Airways , the Japanese launch customer for Boeing Co's
The ANA flight was the second by an airline since aviation regulators on Friday gave permission for 787 operations to restart after batteries on two of them overheated in mid January. One was on an ANA plane in Japan and another on a Japan Airlines jet parked at Boston's Logan airport.
Ethiopian Airlines
The ANA flight, with company president Shinichiro Ito and Boeing's chief of commercial aircraft, Ray Conner, among those on board, left Tokyo's Haneda airport at 8:59 a.m. local time. It returned without incident at 10:54 a.m., a spokesman for the airline said.
ANA plans at least 230 test flights through May before resuming commercial operations. In addition to the battery fix approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States, Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau has requested its airlines monitor the battery current while the jet is in the air and inspect used batteries.
ANA owns 17 of the 50 Dreamliners, which have been grounded since mid January, while local rival JAL has seven of the carbon composite aircraft in its fleet.
JAL will start test flying its Dreamliners early next month with the aim of returning to normal operation in June. Neither Japanese carrier, which on Tuesday will release their earnings results for the three months that ended March 31, have said how much the 787 grounding has cost them in lost revenue.
(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Ron Popeski)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/japans-ana-takes-first-787-back-air-since-025408006.html
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রবিবার, ২৮ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Relationship Recital: How We Met | Weddingbee
In order to better understand how lucky we were that we met, I will start by saying that Sparky grew up in St. Louis, went to college in Indiana (Purdue, like Miss Scooter!), and nearly moved to Chicago upon graduation. (He ended up moving to Seattle for a job instead.) I grew up in Seattle and have lived here my whole life with the exception of the few months I studied abroad.
Thirty-one hours driving, according to Google Maps
In the summer of 2006 I was getting used to being back in the country (having arrived home from three months abroad). That summer was rough; my grandfather died and the father of the guy I was dating at the time also died, both within two weeks of each other. I was very close to my (now ex) boyfriend?s dad, and both deaths hit me hard. I had already begun to realize that I wasn?t wonderfully happy in my relationship, but I kept thinking maybe things would get better. After his dad died I promised myself I would be strong and supportive and our relationship would fix itself.
During that rough time, we were arguing a lot. On one particular day we had been invited to a party at the home of one of my best friends from college. I hadn?t intended to go, but then we argued so I decided to go to the party on my own.
Approximately one week before meeting Sparky. Please excuse my ridiculous 20-year-old self. / Personal photo
At the party, I walked in and immediately found myself a place on the couch. There was a guy there that I?d never met before, and he proved to be very funny and interesting. I spent hours chatting and laughing with him, and when I eventually left the party many hours later I was so glad that I had gone.
Little did I know that the guy at the party had seen me the moment I entered the party and had decided that he wanted to know me. He thought I was cute and, after talking for hours, thought I was smart and sweet.
We became friends and started hanging out fairly frequently. I knew he was a good guy because less than two weeks after making my acquaintance he helped me move. As our friendship developed, I learned that this guy had gone to high school with my college friend and had run into her randomly on the street in downtown Seattle. Not that big of a deal when you?re from the city, but quite impressive when you realize that they both grew up in the Midwest.
Backing up: Sparky graduated college in May of 2006. Earlier that year he had been offered a position here in Seattle, and it was pretty much exactly what he wanted. He made the decision to accept the offer and make the move to the West Coast. One day, after moving to his new home, Sparky was exploring downtown Seattle. Across the street he thought he saw someone he knew from St. Louis. He wasn?t sure enough to call out to her at that point but instead looked her up on Facebook when he got home. (What would we do without Facebook?) After asking how likely it was that she was at this corner at this time, she replied that yes, it was in fact her! Not only that but she was having a housewarming party and thought Sparky should come so they could catch up and reconnect.
Well, they didn?t really get the chance to reconnect or catch up at that party because Sparky spent the entire time in conversation with yours truly. We hit it off, we clicked, and we became great friends.
First picture of us taken together on 4/2007 / Personal photo
We went to Seattle U soccer games, we tried new restaurants, we went to Mariners games, and we played video games. Sparky?s apartment happened to be a block from my school and work, so I spent a lot of time there. We really connected and it wasn?t very long (read: October) before I had to admit to myself that I had feelings for him.
One problem: we both were dating other people.
Anyone else meet the guy of their dreams only to find that he was already spoken for?
Source: http://www.weddingbee.com/2013/04/28/how-we-met-stories-47/
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শনিবার, ২৭ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
শুক্রবার, ২৬ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Twitter?s Vine video sharing app coming soon to Android
(Reuters) - This year's U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pennsylvania has attracted a record total of 9,860 entries, the United States Golf Association (USGA) said on Thursday. The number of applicants for the June 13-16 tournament eclipsed the previous best of 9,086 for the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, New York. "The fact that we have a record number of entries, from across the world, is a testament to both the great appeal of the U.S. Open and the historic nature and grandeur of Merion Golf Club," USGA Executive Director Mike Davis said in a statement. The U.S. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/twitter-vine-video-sharing-app-coming-soon-android-232046243.html
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China slams Philippine bid to "legalize" occupation of islands
BEIJING (Reuters) - China accused the Philippines on Friday of trying to legalize its occupation of islands in the disputed South China Sea, repeating that Beijing would never agree to international arbitration.
Frustrated with the slow pace of regional diplomacy, the Philippines in January angered China by asking a U.N. tribunal to order a halt to Beijing's activities that it said violated Philippine sovereignty over the islands, surrounded by potentially energy-rich waters.
Claims by an increasingly powerful China over most of the South China Sea have set it directly against U.S. allies Vietnam and the Philippines. Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia also claim parts of the waters and China has a separate dispute with Japan in the East China Sea.
Manila said on Thursday that a U.N. arbitration court had set up the tribunal which would hear Manila's complaint, but China said this was an attempt to steal Chinese territory.
"The Philippine side is trying to use this to negate China's territorial sovereignty and attach a veneer of 'legality' to its illegal occupation of Chinese islands and reefs," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website (www.mfa.gov.cn).
The Philippines must immediately withdraw personnel and facilities from the islands, the ministry added, listing those which it said Manila was occupying.
Manila asked the tribunal of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to order a halt to China's activities.
But the convention did not apply in this case as what the Philippines was actually asking for was a decision on sovereignty, the ministry said.
"China's refusal to accept the Philippines' request for arbitration has full grounding in international law," it said.
China had always believed that the two countries should resolve their dispute through direct talks, the ministry added.
Southeast Asian nations stepped up efforts on Thursday to engage China in talks to resolve maritime tensions, agreeing to meet to try to reach common ground on disputed waters ahead of planned discussions in Beijing later this year.
Efforts by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to craft a code of conduct to manage South China Sea tensions all but collapsed last year at a summit chaired by Cambodia, a close economic ally of China, when the group failed to issue a closing statement for the first time.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-slams-philippine-bid-legalize-occupation-islands-063113444.html
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Here's your chance to try out App.net for free; we've got 200 invitations to hand out. Update: here's 200 more!
200 invitations won't last long, so if you're interested grab one quickly!
The good people at App.net have been trying something new by offering limited, invitation-only free tier accounts. It's a great way to try out the services App.net has to offer, like the Twitter-style social blogging, cloud storage, and messaging services before they decide to spend any money. Everyone likes to try before they buy, and it leads to more satisfied customers who know what to expect. It's a great idea, but invites aren't exactly the easiest thing to get.
We can alleviate that a little bit, as ADN has reached out to us and given us 200 invites to hand out. They know readers of sites like Android Central are the type who want to try out these sort of services, and can provide feedback to make everything as good as it can be. 200 invites won't last long, though, so if you're interested you'll need to jump on it.
Update: The first 200 went quickly, so here's 200 more from the fine folks at App.net!
Join App.net from AndroidCentral
If you use the invitation, you'll be automatically following Android Central, so you'll have some content in your stream while you look for others to follow and talk with. You don't have to keep following us though, there are no strings attached here.
This is a great way to try out the App.net service, so be sure to give it a look. We'll see you there!
| |
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/JVUjiekXVgA/story01.htm
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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৫ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Study finds that residential lawns efflux more carbon dioxide than corn fields
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
More carbon dioxide is released from residential lawns than corn fields according to a new study. And much of the difference can likely be attributed to soil temperature. The data, from researchers at Elizabethtown College, suggest that urban heat islands may be working at smaller scales than previously thought.
These findings provide a better understanding of the changes that occur when agricultural lands undergo development and urbanization to support growing urban populations.
David Bowne, assistant professor of biology, led the study to look at the amount of carbon dioxide being released from residential lawns versus corn fields in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His co-author, Erin Johnson, was an undergraduate at the time of the study and did the work as part of her senior honors thesis. Their findings were published online today in Soil Science Society of America Journal.
For Bowne, the study allowed him to look beyond the obvious impact of losing agricultural fields to development ? the loss of food that was once produced on the land.
"That is a legitimate concern, but I wanted to look more at how this change could potentially impact the carbon cycle with the understanding that the carbon cycle has implications for global climate change," explains Bowne.
To begin to understand how the carbon cycle was changing, Bowne and Johnson measured carbon dioxide efflux, soil temperature, and soil moisture under the two different land uses. They found that both carbon dioxide efflux and soil temperature were higher in residential lawns than in corn fields. Additionally, temperature had the most influence on the levels of carbon dioxide efflux, followed by the type of land use.
Higher temperatures leading to increased carbon dioxide efflux was not a surprise for Bowne and Johnson as this relationship has been documented before. "As you increase temperature," Bowne explains, "you increase biological activity ? be it microbial, plant, fungal, or animal." That increased activity, then, leads to more respiration and higher levels of carbon dioxide leaving the soils.
What was unexpected, however, was that the higher temperatures found in residential lawns suggested urban heat islands working at small scales. Urban heat islands are well documented phenomena in which development leads to large areas of dark-colored surfaces such as roofs, buildings, and parking lots. The dark color means more heat is absorbed leading to an increase in temperature in the neighboring areas. Urban areas, then, are warmer than the surrounding countryside.
The interesting part of Bowne's study is that the urban heat islands in the areas he was looking seem to operate on much smaller scales than he previously thought. While heat islands are usually studied on large scales ? such as comparing a large city and its surrounding rural areas ? fewer studies have been done to work out how development may affect temperatures on small scales.
"Within a developed area, within a city or town, you could have local increases in soil temperature because of the amount of development within a really small area," says Bowne.
His research suggests that temperatures may vary even across short distances due to the influence of development. One source cited in his paper says that development within even 175 meters of a location can cause an increase in temperature. Bowne is planning further experiments to test soil temperatures over a range of development setups and sizes.
The other factor that Bowne will test in the future is the sequestration of carbon. Along with the carbon dioxide efflux data in the current study, information about carbon sequestration would give a bigger picture of carbon cycling. That picture could then help researchers determine how various land uses as well as management practices such as no-till agriculture or leaving grass clippings on lawns can change the carbon cycling.
"If we go from one land use to another land use, how does that impact carbon cycling which in turn can affect climate change? Our current study touches on one component of that cycle, and more research is needed to address this huge topic," says Bowne.
###
American Society of Agronomy: http://www.agronomy.org
Thanks to American Society of Agronomy for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
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The Nominees Are? ::: The Writers' Collective
Five dedicated community volunteers who are ready to be your Writers? Collective Board!
One of the most important tasks of our Annual General Meeting on May 4 is to elect the Board of The Writers? Collective. The Board guides the work and development of The Writers? Collective, including making decisions about programming and finances. This year, five individuals have been nominated to the Board. We have three continuing Board members and two new members to add to our team!
?
Executive
President ? Hilary Friesen
Hilary joined the Board in 2008 as Secretary and became the President in 2009. Hilary has been published in Juice, the University of Winnipeg?s creative writing journal, as well as in Collective Consciousness, The Writers? Collective journal. Hilary works as a Client and Strategic Services Manager at ChangeMakers, a Winnipeg marketing agency.
?
Vice-President ? Eve Dutton
After a year as volunteer layout artist for the Collective Consciousness, Eve? joined The Writers? Collective Board in 2008 and became Vice-President in 2009. Her third-grade report card reads as follows: ?Eve loves to write. Unfortunately, we cannot get her to stop.?
?
Members-At-Large
?
Thembani Mdluli
Originally from Winnipeg, Thembani served a short term as Programming Coordinator at The Writers? Collective before becoming a Board member following a move to Toronto. She now volunteers her time directing the newly rebranded Collective Consciousness while balancing other hats working in media production as the Director of Brand Marketing for film industry directory Fonebook, and as a screenwriter and filmmaker.
?
Kelly-Anne Riess
Kelly-Anne Riess is the author of three books, including the poetry collection To End a Conversation (Thistledown Press), which was featured on CBC and the Writer?s Almanac with Garrison Keillor.?As a freelance journalist, she has written for the Globe and Mail and Canadian Geographic. She has also worked on a number of documentaries that have aired worldwide on networks such as A&E Biography and History Television.
This will be Kelly-Anne?s first term on The Writers? Collective Board.
?
Kimberley Sperling
Kimberly Sperling is a Real Estate Broker, Home Stager, Property Manager and Writer. Her writing experience has spanned several venues: advertising and marketing ads, articles, short stories, children?s books, motivational pieces, poems, law, fiction and non-fiction. She also likes to use her creativity in photography with photos of nature, trees, homes, and interior design. She is new to Winnipeg and spent the last 3 years in Calgary. Kimberley has extensive Board and volunteer experience.
This will be Kimberley?s first term on The Writers? Collective Board.
?
Please join us at the AGM on Saturday, May 4, at 3:30 in the Carol Shields Auditorium at Millennium Library, to learn about The Writers? Collective?s activities over the past year and our plans for the next, and to meet the Board.
?
Hilary Friesen
Source: http://thewriterscollective.org/2013/04/the-nominees-are/
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Game of Thrones, Season 3
Westeros is a funny place. With its kings and queens and lords and ladies, it?s the opposite of egalitarian. But it?s also a place where women and smugglers can be knighted, where having a famous name can lead to a lifetime of exile, and where pimps and eunuchs can end up advising kings. Cunning Varys, who has risen to great influence in mysterious fashion, demonstrated his skills this week, and made it clear that Westeros offers multiple paths to power-seekers.
First, he shares with Tyrion with the traumatic story of how he was castrated and then thrown out to the streets to die. ?Influence is largely a matter of patience,? he says. ?Step by step, one distasteful task after another, I made my way from the slums of Myr to the small chamber.? This scene is important not only because it gives the viewer insight into Varys, but also because it sets the tone for the rest of the episode: Vengeance is on the minds of many in Westeros, though not everyone is as patient as Varys.
It's a treat to watch Lord Varys pull the levers of powers behind the scenes, as he does here in a conversation with Lady Olenna RedwynePhoto by Keith Bernstein/HBO
Next we see Varys at work as the Master of Whispers. He and Ros are gossiping about the sexual prowess of Pod, Tyrion?s squire, when he tells her that ?prodigies appear in the oddest of places.? This is, of course, a largely nonsexual double entendre, as Ros herself started out as one of Littlefinger?s prostitutes but is now his trusted assistant and adviser.
And lastly, we see Varys doing what he does best?using the intelligence he has procured from Ros to serve the realm, at least as he sees it. Having learned that Littlefinger intends to take Sansa Stark?the ?key to the north? and the Lannisters? hostage?on his voyage to propose to her aunt, Varys turns to Lady Olenna Redwynne, matriarch of the Tyrells. And whaddya know: All of a sudden Margaery Tyrell suggests to Sansa that it would be lovely for her to marry Loras so they could be sisters.
No doubt that some will complain that these scenes are a departure from the events of Storm of Swords, on which the season is based. Over at the AV Club, Todd VanDerWerff (a frequent guest of Slate?s "TV Club") addresses the need for the show to depart from the source material at times. He?s mostly talking about the way the show has handled Barristan Selmy and Daenerys? knowledge of Valyrian. I would argue that the same point applies to Varys.
He?s an important figure in Westeros, but because he so often lurks in the shadows, we know of his exploits and power only from what other people say about him, and how wary of him they are. That is fine for a book, but on a television show, it?s far more entertaining for us to see at least few scenes showing a smooth operator at work than it is to listen to characters cursing him and his spiders.? And while we don?t yet know all the ?distasteful tasks? that he completed on his journey to the small council, we are now privy to at least a few of his secrets.?
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=6416ed8db0b58017ef9e9a669f406d2e
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Israeli focus on Syria gives Hagel respite on Iran
JERUSALEM (AP) ? On Chuck Hagel's inaugural visit to Israel as U.S. defense secretary, Syria surpassed Iran as the security threat of greatest urgency to the U.S.' closest Mideast ally. That quite unexpectedly gave the new Pentagon chief a temporary respite from the delicate duty of tempering Israeli warnings about attacking Iran to stop it from building a nuclear bomb.
Israeli leaders see Iran's nuclear ambitions as a threat to their country's very existence, given Tehran's vow to wipe it off the map. But Syria suddenly has emerged so prominently that it overshadowed Iran during Hagel's three days in Israel.
That explains, in part, why Hagel repeatedly stressed in public Israel's right to defend itself and to decide on its own, if necessary, whether and when to attack Iran. He gave less emphasis than usual by American officials to Washington's wish that diplomacy and sanctions be given more time to persuade Iran to change course.
Notably, Israel's new defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, said at a joint news conference with Hagel on Monday that he, too, thinks non-military means ought to be pursued further.
"By one way or another, the military nuclear project of Iran should be stopped," Yaalon said. "Having said that, we believe that the military option, which is well discussed, should be the last resort anyhow." He added, "There are other tools to be used and to be exhausted, whether it is diplomacy, economic sanctions, or even more support of the opposition in Iran."
Hagel seemed to sense slightly less urgency in the Israeli concern about Iran, although he by no means dismissed the problem. One year ago, Hagel's predecessor, Leon Panetta, was letting it be known that he feared Israel could attack Iran in a matter of weeks. Washington worries that such a strike could ignite a wider war in which it would be difficult for the U.S. to avoid getting involved.
That was before the Syrian civil war had reached the point of widespread concern that its illicit stockpiles of chemical weapons could pose a threat to Israel and other neighbors.
Jordan, too, is worried about transfers of Syrian chemical weapons. Hagel stopped briefly in Jordan Tuesday.
"The United States and Jordan share mutual concerns about the ongoing crisis in Syria and continue to consult closely on a number of issues including chemical weapons and the demands posed by the influx of Syrian refugees fleeing the violence," Pentagon press secretary George Little said after Hagel's meeting in Amman.
Little said the Pentagon has provided more than $70 million to Jordan this year to help secure its border and prevent the transfer of chemical weapons from Syria.
Hagel ended his day in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he met with Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who also serves as the Saudi defense minister. Little said they discussed a proposed sale of advanced U.S. missiles for Saudi F-15 fighters as well as mutual concerns about Iran's nuclear program and the violence in Syria.
The Israelis see immediate dangers in the Syrian civil war, not only in the threat along Israel's northeastern border but also in the grim possibility that Syrian chemical weapons could fall into the hands of extremists. Israel says each of those possibilities is a "red line" beyond which it would have to act.
The concern is that if President Bashar Assad is overthrown, any of the Islamic extremist groups trying to oust him could turn his extensive arsenal against Israel.
A senior Israeli military intelligence official said Tuesday that Assad has repeatedly used chemical weapons against insurgent groups. It was the first such public claim by Israel and appeared to increase pressure on Washington and other Western countries to intervene in Syria.
President Barack Obama has warned that the use of chemical weapons by Assad would be a "game changer." Little, the Pentagon press secretary, said Tuesday the U.S. government is still assessing reports of Syrian chemical weapons use, adding that such acts would be "entirely unacceptable." He did not elaborate on possible U.S. actions.
The White House said Tuesday the U.S. hasn't yet come to the conclusion that Assad has used chemical weapons even though close U.S. allies say he has.
In his assessment, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the head of research and analysis in Israeli military intelligence, told a security conference in Tel Aviv that Assad has used chemical weapons multiple times, including near Damascus, the capital, last month.
During Hagel's visit, Israeli leaders still emphasized the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran ? as did Hagel. But to a degree not foreseen when Hagel arrived in Israel over the weekend, the threat posed by Syria's chemical weapons overshadowed Iran.
Hagel wrapped up his visit Tuesday by meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who greeted him with a brief but pointed caution about resolving the Iran problem. He complained of Iran arming terrorist groups with sophisticated weapons, and its "attempt to arm itself with nuclear weapons."
"This is a challenge that Israel cannot accept, and as you and President Obama have repeatedly said, Israel must be able to defend itself, by itself, against any threat," Netanyahu said.
___
Associated Press writer Ariel David contributed to this report.
Robert Burns can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-focus-syria-gives-hagel-respite-iran-190331708--politics.html
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বুধবার, ২৪ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Flight delays due to furloughs not as bad as feared: FAA
By Ros Krasny
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Flight delays in the United States linked to the furlough of thousands of air traffic controllers have not been as bad as expected so far, the head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday.
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta told lawmakers the agency could not find the kind of "sizeable" non-payroll budget cuts that would have avoided furloughs and the resulting flight delays, but added that passenger safety is not at risk.
"We are focused on maintaining our core operational and safety responsibilities," Huerta told a House appropriations subcommittee hearing on the agency's 2014 budget request. "We will not do anything to compromise safety."
The FAA has said will furlough 47,000 employees for up to 11 days through the end of the fiscal year in September as part of its plan to meet $637 million in required spending cuts. Nearly 13,000 of those employees are air traffic controllers.
Bipartisan legislation was introduced in the Senate on Wednesday to provide the U.S. Department of Transport, which administers the FAA, the flexibility to transfer funds between accounts in order to abate air traffic controller furloughs. The immediate prospects for the bill were unclear.
Mike Quigley, a Democrat from Illinois, asked Huerta why the agency did not manage furloughs to maintain higher staffing levels at major hubs versus regional airports.
"We concluded we couldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers between particular hubs, particular facilities," Huerta said, adding that conducting the furloughs unequally would still result in significant delays while being unfair to employees.
Among major hubs, Huerta said Chicago's O'Hare International Airport had not seen "significant impacts" this week, and that delays at Atlanta's Hartsfield International have not been as bad as models might have predicted. The busy summer travel season is still a wildcard, he added.
Ed Pastor, the ranking Democrat on the panel, pressed Huerta on how aggressively the agency had tried to adapt to its budget cuts. The FAA has authority to move 2 percent of its operational budget without congressional approval.
"We have taken full advantage of the flexibilities we have" in terms of budget, but "we simply couldn't not get to" the $637 million in cuts required under sequestration for fiscal 2013 without idling staff, Huerta said.
Huerta was also quizzed about whether the FAA had asked for flexibility within its overall budget to preserve funds for air traffic operations as well as on why the agency was still paying overtime to employees.
"We have dramatically reduced all scheduled overtime and are preserving overtime to deal with emergency situations," he said.
The FAA has had a hiring freeze since the start of the year, has canceled contracts with many contract and temporary employees and has cut back on staff travel, training, IT expenses and other costs, Huerta said.
"We have had big savings ... we simply could not get to the number," he said, noting repeatedly that 70 percent of FAA's operations budget is for salaries.
Air travelers in the United States have experienced delays at some airports this week as the furloughs of air traffic controllers got under way.
The delays have been spotty. Early on Wednesday, Los Angeles International airport was experiencing 45-minute delays on some arriving planes that the FAA attributed to staffing, but other airports were mostly operating normally, according to the FAA.
(Reporting by Ros Krasny; Editing by Alwyn Scott, G Crosse and Bernard Orr)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/faa-chief-says-u-air-safety-not-sacrificed-161751241--finance.html
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Time Out at TCC 2013: How Social Media Saved the Day ...
By Stefanie Panke
Editor, Social Software in Education
Last week 1000 attendees enjoyed three days packed with information and discussion at the 18th Annual TCC Worldwide Online Conference, held from April 16-18, 2013. The acronym TCC stands for Technology, Colleges and Community. Organized by the University of Hawaii, TCC is the oldest running worldwide online conference designed for university and college practitioners. Addressees include faculty, academic support staff, counselors, student services personnel, students, and administrators.
As usual, my review is by no means an authoritative summary but comprises an eclectic collection of talks and topics I found particularly interesting as well as general observations of the conference?s atmosphere and features.
Day 1 (April 16):? Technical Hiccups, Engaging Presenters
TCC 2013 started with the GAU* for an online event: The conference site was down. Surprisingly, the impact was not as devastating as one would think. The social media team quickly rose to the occasion and posted the link to an alternative entry page on Facebook and Twitter. Social Media saved the day!
The first session I attended dealt with the question of how to approach the challenge of training faculty in using instructional technologies. Sher Downing, Executive Director for Online Academic Services (OAS) in the School of Business at Arizona State University, presented her strategies in the well-received talk ?Ways to Train Faculty.? To facilitate online learning, the OAS team developed a comprehensive faculty training package that comprises innovative formats such as ?hit the road? one-on-one training in faculty offices, online and interactive training and certification, faculty blogs, faculty roundtables and informal chats ?on the dean?s patio.? Especially the latter seem to be an ideal space for discussing ideas, visions and problems among faculty and instructional designers.
Over the past six month, her instructional support team has seen an increase in faculty participation, a better understanding of course development and meeting student expectations online. Downing stressed the importance of identifying faculty needs through surveys, meetings and informal feedback. My favorite slide was her word cloud visualization of how instructional designers think and how their thought process in return can be overwhelming for faculty. Informal meetings allow for translating between the trend-driven world of educational technology and the realm of the traditional classroom most instructors are familiar with.
One thing I really enjoy about TCC is the integration of student presentation into the conference program. Often, these presentations are catalysts for discussions that engage new members of the educational technology community as well as seasoned instructors and researchers. A great example is the presentation by Kasey Fernandez on rubrics. In order to help distance educators use rubrics in their courses, Kasey designed an online module to teach the basics of rubrics for distance education as her master thesis project. She evaluated the module with a test group of educational technology graduate students.
In the discussion forum, Kasey motivates other teachers to use rubrics: ?I have used rubrics as a teacher in the face to face setting and as a student in distance education classes. In both settings, I believe that rubrics give students the opportunity to use self assessment to optimize their assignments. As a student, I really appreciate it when my instructors use rubrics.? As participants? comments in the discussion forum show, rubric based assessment is definitely a powerful instructional design tool that we should pay close attention to in research and practice.
- Screenshots: Excerpts from forum discussion on rubrics
In ?Dim the Lights: The ds106 Show,? Alan Levine presented his open course on digital storytelling. The course comprises an open assignment bank that participants populate, a daily creative challenge, and even features an internet-based radio station. To get an idea of the class atmosphere take a look at the TCC preparation session, available in Google Hangout.
A recording of Alan?s presentation is available via Adobe Connect. His ?rant? about MOOCs and the current dystopian visions for online education is worth watching. Alan criticized the stagnant, non-imaginative nature of MOOCs that are offered by MITx or Coursera: ?Typical format: One and a half hour of video lecture, then I get sent to a discussion forum to ?engage? with thousands of people. Everybody is doing the same thing, at the same time.? In contrast, ds106 is driven by the ?Syndication Bus.? Alan explained: ?Participants? experiences are rooted in their own digital space.? The learning products of ds106 are tied together through data feed aggregation, similar to the connectivist course model originally envisioned by Downes, Siemens and others.
Day 2 (April 17):? From Learning Ecologies to Library Websites to Concept Maps
An interesting opener to the second day was the keynote by Prof. Albert Sangr? from the eLearn research center at Open University of Catalonia (Spain). His talk on ?Learning Ecologies for Lifelong Learning: A Roadmap for Research? outlined challenges of personal learning networks in the traditional academic environment. Again, the recording is freely accessible via Adobe Connect. Prof. Sangr??s talk raised some interesting questions: ?The potential is clear, but how much do we actually learn informally? Which success factors or strategies need to be identified?? He described a mixed-method research project that maps the learning ecologies of primary school teachers in Catalonia. At this stage, the research team has completed in-depth interviews with six teachers. Sangr??s research roadmap envisioned studies on informal learning in different professional sectors, the need to identify best practices and strategies for individuals and institutions, the instructional design of resources and learning paths, assessment, open educational resources and teacher training.
Danilo Baylen, Professor of Instructional Technology at the University of West Georgia, discussed the use of concept maps to support student learning in online courses. He presented and compared three different online services for concept mapping: Prezi, Bubble.Us and SpicyNotes. Using data collected from mapping assignments in a university class, Danilo discussed the challenges of integrating concept mapping tools and assignments into the curriculum of an online course ? it was clear that he was a big fan of mapping. ?I truly believe that concept mapping is a useful tool for students to grasp the big ideas of a unit.?
Joseph Dudley is the campus librarian at Bryant & Stratton College. His talk focused on library websites, but I found it very insightful for digital resource management in general. Academic library websites have become major service points for patrons, providing access to catalogs and databases, e-journals and e-book collections, interlibrary loan services, virtual reference resources and even real time assistance from librarians via chat. Joseph stated that ?As a mode of communication, academic library websites are both product and process.?? I asked him to elaborate and he explained his idea as follows: ?The user sees the library portal as a stable product. On the librarian side, however, the site is a process that requires regular maintenance, regardless whether the content is updated or not. On a day-to-day basis, if no new content is publicized, the users will not be aware of the process side.?
My colleague, Rob Moore, presented the webinars and e-learning modules the instructional design team at UNC School of Government develops with Adobe Connect. He ended his presentation with an open discussion. The participants raised interesting aspects for organizing online learning, for example: ?It?s amazing what we can do with software such as this, but some of us do not have staff to help with developing courses.? I guess the major impediment to me is simply the time it takes to produce content?? and juggling that with other responsibilities? (Ed Birdyshaw).
Day 3 (April 18): All About MOOCs
My last day at TCC was all about MOOCs. Terry Anderson, researcher in the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Centre at Athabasca University, focused his talk on the challenges of social interactions and peer-to-peer learning in massive open online courses, open educational resources, and open scholarship. In his presentation, Anderson started out by explaining classical learning theories, i.e., behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism and used this foil to discuss different types of open learning. I particularly found his visualization of ?social constructivist freedoms? enlightening to understand choices in open course design. The talk is available online.
What have we learned about MOOCs and their potential to support learning? Veronica Diaz, associate director at EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, tried to answer this question by reviewing evaluation data and examples of how MOOCs are being utilized. I was impressed by the evaluation data Diaz pulled from the 2012 Stanford MOOC. It shows the diversity of backgrounds in MOOC participants.
Refreshingly, Diaz?s talk was not a one-way lecture but comprised interactive polls. In the beginning, for instance, she asked participants if they are in the process of creating or adopting MOOCs at their institution. As an idea for future TCCs, it would be great to carry on these conversations in the discussion forum. ?A collection of resources used in the presentation can be accessed via Google Docs. Also, the recording of Diaz? talk is available.
Thoughts About Badges
In our reviews of TCC 2012**, Jessica Knott and I had both praise and critical comments for the idea of badges as an incentive to foster conference activity.
This year, I am sold ? not necessarily to the concept of badges but to the idea of letting conference attendees explore new tools and technologies. Here is why: Several postings by Paula Iaeger convinced me that including this innovative feature had impact beyond the conference itself. Paula said: ?The next week I return to Texas to begin my work on a co-op of highly skilled educators to build a series of badges for our classes and for the general public. To say the TCC Conference was important to me is an understatement.?
Conclusion
Despite technical difficulties on the first day of the conference, TCC 2013 was a great event that brought together students, researchers and practitioners from a variety of backgrounds. Due to the time difference, I was only able to attend a few online sessions live, which made me appreciate the lively well-designed online forum even more. TCC offers opportunities to meet and learn, in synchronous and asynchronous forms.
__________
* Gr??ter Anzunehmender Unfall (worst possible accident, German)
** See Stefanie?s Mahalo TCC 2012: I Have a New Badge?Backpack! and Jess?s The Quest for Badging: My Experiences at TCC?2012.
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Source: http://etcjournal.com/2013/04/23/time-out-at-tcc-2013-how-social-media-saved-the-day/
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Jupiter's atmosphere still contains water supplied by the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet impact
Apr. 23, 2013 ? Astronomy & Astrophysics is publishing Herschel observations of water in Jupiter's stratosphere. It is a clear remnant of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet impact on Jupiter nearly 20 years ago.
In July 1994, the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) hit Jupiter and left visible scars on the Jovian disk for weeks. This spectacular event was the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision in the solar system, and it was followed worldwide by professional and amateur astronomers.
SL9 was discovered orbiting Jupiter by astronomers David Levy and Carolyn and Eugene M. Shoemaker on March 24, 1993. It was the first comet observed orbiting a planet rather than the Sun. SL9 was found to be composed of 21 fragments. Soon after that, orbital studies showed that the comet had passed within Jupiter's Roche limit in July 1992. Inside this limit, the planet's tidal forces are strong enough to disintegrate a body held together by its own gravity, thus explaining SL9's fragmentation. Even more interestingly, the studies showed that SL9's orbit would pass within Jupiter in July 1994 and that the comet would then collide with the planet, with impacts in the southern hemisphere near 44?S latitude.
The SL9 impact and its subsequent scars on Jupiter were observed for weeks, but its chemical impact on Jupiter's atmosphere lasted even longer. Emission from water vapor was observed during the fireball phase of the SL9 impacts, but from that observation, it was difficult to assess how this would modify Jupiter's composition on the long term. In 1997, the ESA Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) detected water vapor in the stratosphere of Jupiter. At that time, astronomers suspected that it might be a consequence of the SL9 impact because comets are known to be water-rich bodies. However, there were other possible sources of water: interplanetary dust particles produced by cometary activity and asteroid collisions, icy rings, or one of the 60 Jovian satellites.
Nearly twenty years after this major impact, astronomers are still observing its consequences on Jupiter. T. Cavali? and his colleagues [1] observed Jupiter with the ESA Herschel Space Observatory, which is sensitive enough to map the abundance of water vs. latitude and altitude in the Jovian stratosphere. These observations, which have now been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, show a clear north-south asymmetry in the distribution of water, with more water in the south. They indicate that 95% of the water currently observed on Jupiter comes from the comet.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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Journal Reference:
- T. Cavali?, H. Feuchtgruber, E. Lellouch, M. de Val-Borro, C. Jarchow, R. Moreno, P. Hartogh, G. Orton, T. K. Greathouse, F. Billebaud, M. Dobrijevic, L. M. Lara, A. Gonz?lez, H. Sagawa. Spatial distribution of water in the stratosphere of Jupiter fromHerschelHIFI and PACS observations. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2013; 553: A21 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201220797
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/CXcnp-4LL4M/130423102335.htm
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Visualized: A walk through the Inside 3D Printing Conference and Expo
We didn't find much in the way of news at the Inside 3D Printing Conference and Expo here in NYC (and, we're sad to say, our press badges were just old-fashioned 2D printed), but there was plenty to look at, thankfully. Between the slew of business and consumer devices and the boatload of printed objects, the event was part business conference, part art show. And while the real star was the still-fresh world of desktop home printers, plenty of companies brought out their big-gun industrial devices (including at least one really sweet giant 3D scanner). Peep the gallery below to check out some of the eye candy from the event.
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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/SP7Sc_5gU8A/
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