Can your smartphone see through walls? Engineers make tiny, low-cost, terahertz imager chip

Dec. 10, 2012 ? A secret agent is racing against time. He knows a bomb is nearby. He rounds a corner, spots a pile of suspicious boxes in the alleyway, and pulls out his cell phone. As he scans it over the packages, their contents appear onscreen. In the nick of time, his handy smartphone application reveals an explosive device, and the agent saves the day.

Sound far-fetched? In fact it is a real possibility, thanks to tiny inexpensive silicon microchips developed by a pair of electrical engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The chips generate and radiate high-frequency electromagnetic waves, called terahertz (THz) waves, that fall into a largely untapped region of the electromagnetic spectrum -- between microwaves and far-infrared radiation -- and that can penetrate a host of materials without the ionizing damage of X-rays.

When incorporated into handheld devices, the new microchips could enable a broad range of applications in fields ranging from homeland security to wireless communications to health care, and even touchless gaming. In the future, the technology may lead to noninvasive cancer diagnosis, among other applications.

"Using the same low-cost, integrated-circuit technology that's used to make the microchips found in our cell phones and notepads today, we have made a silicon chip that can operate at nearly 300 times their speed," says Ali Hajimiri, the Thomas G. Myers Professor of Electrical Engineering at Caltech. "These chips will enable a new generation of extremely versatile sensors."

Hajimiri and postdoctoral scholar Kaushik Sengupta (PhD '12) describe the work in the December issue of IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

Researchers have long touted the potential of the terahertz frequency range, from 0.3 to 3 THz, for scanning and imaging. Such electromagnetic waves can easily penetrate packaging materials and render image details in high resolution, and can also detect the chemical fingerprints of pharmaceutical drugs, biological weapons, or illegal drugs or explosives. However, most existing terahertz systems involve bulky and expensive laser setups that sometimes require exceptionally low temperatures. The potential of terahertz imaging and scanning has gone untapped because of the lack of compact, low-cost technology that can operate in the frequency range.

To finally realize the promise of terahertz waves, Hajimiri and Sengupta used complementary metal-oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, technology, which is commonly used to make the microchips in everyday electronic devices, to design silicon chips with fully integrated functionalities and that operate at terahertz frequencies -- but fit on a fingertip.

"This extraordinary level of creativity, which has enabled imaging in the terahertz frequency range, is very much in line with Caltech's long tradition of innovation in the area of CMOS technology," says Ares Rosakis, chair of Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science. "Caltech engineers, like Ali Hajimiri, truly work in an interdisciplinary way to push the boundaries of what is possible."

The new chips boast signals more than a thousand times stronger than existing approaches, and emanate terahertz signals that can be dynamically programmed to point in a specified direction, making them the world's first integrated terahertz scanning arrays.

Using the scanner, the researchers can reveal a razor blade hidden within a piece of plastic, for example, or determine the fat content of chicken tissue. "We are not just talking about a potential. We have actually demonstrated that this works," says Hajimiri. "The first time we saw the actual images, it took our breath away."

Hajimiri and Sengupta had to overcome multiple hurdles to translate CMOS technology into workable terahertz chips -- including the fact that silicon chips are simply not designed to operate at terahertz frequencies. In fact, every transistor has a frequency, known as the cut-off frequency, above which it fails to amplify a signal -- and no standard transistors can amplify signals in the terahertz range.

To work around the cut-off-frequency problem, the researchers harnessed the collective strength of many transistors operating in unison. If multiple elements are operated at the right times at the right frequencies, their power can be combined, boosting the strength of the collective signal.

"We came up with a way of operating transistors above their cut-off frequencies," explains Sengupta. "We are about 40 or 50 percent above the cut-off frequencies, and yet we are able to generate a lot of power and detect it because of our novel methodologies."

"Traditionally, people have tried to make these technologies work at very high frequencies, with large elements producing the power. Think of these as elephants," says Hajimiri. "Nowadays we can make a very large number of transistors that individually are not very powerful, but when combined and working in unison, can do a lot more. If these elements are synchronized -- like an army of ants -- they can do everything that the elephant does and then some."

The researchers also figured out how to radiate, or transmit, the terahertz signal once it has been produced. At such high frequencies, a wire cannot be used, and traditional antennas at the microchip scale are inefficient. What they came up with instead was a way to turn the whole silicon chip into an antenna. Again, they went with a distributed approach, incorporating many small metal segments onto the chip that can all be operated at a certain time and strength to radiate the signal en masse.

"We had to take a step back and ask, 'Can we do this in a different way?'" says Sengupta. "Our chips are an example of the kind of innovations that can be unearthed if we blur the partitions between traditional ways of thinking about integrated circuits, electromagnetics, antennae, and the applied sciences. It is a holistic solution."

IBM helped with chip fabrication for this work.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Caltech. The original article was written by Kimm Fesenmaier.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Kaushik Sengupta, Ali Hajimiri. A 0.28THz 4x4 power-generation and beam-steering array. Solid-State Circuits Conference Digest of Technical Papers (ISSCC), 2012 IEEE International, 2012; DOI: 10.1109/ISSCC.2012.6176999

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/sFuoUU4F0PI/121210120408.htm

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Scientists name extinct lizard after Obama

Carl Buell

In this artist's conception, the carnivorous lizard Palaeosaniwa stalks a pair of hatchling Edmontosaurus dinosaurs as the snake Cerberophis looks on from above, and the lizard Obamadon watches from below. Meanwhile, in the background, a Tyrannosaurus rex encounters a Triceratops troop while an asteroid streaks down to Earth.

By Alan Boyle

The mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago also did in lots of lizards ? including a newly identified creature that's been named Obamadon gracilis in honor of President Barack Obama.

Obama already has a type of fish (Ethiostoma obama) and lichen (Caloplaca obamae) named after him, and now the recently re-elected leader of the free world can add a foot-long, slender-toothed casualty of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction to the list.

Yale paleontologist Nicholas Longrich, the lead author of a paper announcing the find in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, told me that the name arose from a conversation he had with a friend in late 2008, when folks were wondering how Obama's election would change the political scene.

"I said, yeah, we should name a dinosaur after him," Longrich said. "It was sort of a smart-ass comment."

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But the idea stuck. After all, this is the guy who named a different fossil "Mojoceratops."

"It was catchy, and it seemed like a fun thing to do," he said.

There's a serious point behind the paper, of course: Longrich and his colleagues analyzed at fossils representing 30 different types of snakes and lizards, previously collected from locales in western North America ranging from New Mexico to Alberta. Nine of the species, including Obamadon, were previously unrecognized.

"Lizards and snakes rivaled the dinosaurs in terms of diversity, making it just as much an 'Age of Lizards' as an 'Age of Dinosaurs,'" Longrich said in a Yale news release.

Previous studies had suggested that some snake and lizard species went extinct, along with the dinosaurs and many types of mammals, birds, insects and plants. The extinction was presumably due to a catastrophic asteroid strike on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

The new survey suggests that snakes and lizards were hit much harder than previously thought. Longrich and his colleagues estimate that up to 83 percent of all snake and lizard species were killed off. The bigger the creature, the more likely it was to become extinct: The researchers concluded that no species weighing more than a pound survived.

Obamadon was part of a group of creatures known as polyglyphanodonts, which accounted for up to 40 percent of the lizards living in North America before the extinction. Obama's namesake was identified on the basis of jaw fossils from Montana's Hell Creek Formation, with "tall, slender teeth with large central cusps separated from small accessory cusps by lingual grooves."

The lizard was less than a foot long and probably caught insects in its teeth, Longrich said.

The discovery of Obamadon just goes to show how new discoveries can come from old specimens ? including fossils that were?collected years ago, by paleontologists who were focusing dinosaurs or early mammals rather than snakes or lizards. "There hasn't been a heck of a lot of interest in these specimens," Longrich said. "Here we have all this data that's there, waiting to be studied."

Two of the newly recognized fossil species don't yet have scientific names, but when it comes time for the naming, rest assured that Longrich won't come up with anything too wild and crazy.

"We decided not to do the Hitlerosaurus," he said.

More about celebrity species:

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In addition to Longrich, the authors of the paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "Mass Extinction of Lizards and Snakes at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary," include Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar and Jacques A. Gauthier. Longrich says the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary is a more recent term that applies to the mass extinction also known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/10/15823225-ancient-lizard-that-died-out-with-the-dinosaurs-named-after-obama?lite

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Insight: Making France work again

ECUEILLE, France (Reuters) - Shirt manufacturer Marc Roudeillac was delighted when 48 of the 49 staff in his factory in central France voted to adapt their strict 35-hour week contracts to meet the up-and-down demand of the fashion trade.

Then the labor inspector stepped in and ruled the contracts must not be changed. So Roudeillac began an overtime system with 25 percent hourly bonuses. Again, the seamstresses were happy - until the government this year scrapped tax breaks on overtime.

"Now, no one wants to do overtime anymore - they say it's just not worth their while," Roudeillac said at his Confection du Boischaut Nord (CBN) company in the region of Indre, a two-hour drive south of Paris.

CBN is a small miracle of manufacturing: it is one of the few firms in Indre's once-buoyant local textiles sector to have withstood the onslaught of foreign competition, first from southern Europe, then North Africa and now Asia.

Yet the overtime episode is a telling insight into a France struggling with itself: the France whose appetite for work sits uneasily with the France whose priority is to sustain one of highest standards of living in the world.

In just over 30 years after World War Two, France lifted itself from the ignominy of Nazi occupation into a sleek and modern Group of Seven economy with world-beating industrial champions in sectors such as energy and aerospace.

Its welfare system is among the most generous in the world. A road and rail transport network means its companies are within hours of tens of millions of potential customers. It is a leader in luxury goods and is the world's top tourist destination.

But somehow that Gallic vigour is being lost.

Unemployment is at 14-year highs as plant closures mount, France's share of export markets is declining, and the fact that no government in three decades has managed a budget surplus has created a public debt pile almost as big as national output.

Louis Gallois, the industrialist charged by President Francois Hollande to address France's waning competitiveness, even warned in a November report: "French industry has hit a critical threshold below which it risks breaking apart."

The euro zone's debt crisis too has shone a harsh spotlight on France. The International Monetary Fund believes France could get left behind as Italy and Spain are pushed by the crisis into profound economic reform. Ratings agencies Moody's and Standard and Poor's have stripped French debt of its AAA rating.

Diagnosing France's ills has created a whole new literary genre - the work of the self-appointed "declinologues" whose tomes compete on bookshelves to explain and fix the problem.

But the simplest test of France's health is whether a business like CBN can keep selling the world its shirts.

THE GLORIOUS...

One hundred years ago, local entrepreneur Marcel Boussac put Indre on the world textiles map when he ended what was known as the "black look" in France by introducing color into the clothes manufacturing process.

Boussac founded a conglomerate that acted as its own bank and insurance broker and in 1946 bankrolled the first Paris fashion house of an up-and-coming designer called Christian Dior. He had a stable of racehorses, a country chateau and was at one point reputed to be Europe's richest man.

Boussac, like millions of French, was the beneficiary of France's "Glorious 30" - 30 years of uninterrupted boom in which post-World War Two U.S. aid and heavy state planning wrenched its transport, energy, housing, financial and farming sectors into the second half of the 20th century.

It was a period of high wages, high consumption, full employment and very little foreign competition. And it all came to a juddering halt when the 1973 oil crisis sent energy costs soaring and capped the Western world's growth rates for good.

There are no racehorses or country estates for Roudeillac and business partner Richard Boireau, who arrive for work in modest family saloon cars and share a desk in a cramped six-meter-square office.

If their company survives, it is largely thanks to a 20-year alliance serving a major Japanese fashion brand - whose name they asked should not be published - and a manufacturing model pared right down to the bone.

A trained engineer, Roudeillac, 45, says 80 percent of CBN's costs are labor - the local mushroom-picker, beautician or school-leaver whom he and Boireau meticulously train to contribute to the CBN production line.

Because CBN gets the client to purchase the raw materials, and all other overheads are low, CBN's slender gross margin of around six percent depends on optimizing what Roudeillac calls the "productive minute" of the seamstresses.

"What we do is sell French labor - by the minute," he says of their daily output of 200 shirts and 90 jackets.

Now CBN wants to strike out and revive an 86-year-old French brand of shirt called "Lordson" which fell prey to the textile sector's decline but which CBN believes has potential in the high-end quality segment of the market.

The "Lordson" will feature a rich cotton that feels smoother on the back after three years of washes, sleek three-millimeter seams about half the size of normal stitching, and buttons stuck on with a special machine of which only three exist in France.

There is one snag.

"Given our costs, it is impossible to retail a "Made in France" quality shirt for less than 140 euros," said Boireau, who entered the trade sweeping factory floors.

"At 120 euros a shirt it works. But at 140 - not sure."

...AND THE PITIFUL

If veteran textile entrepreneurs like Boireau fear they cannot hit the price point on their signature shirt, it is a direct result of choices made by France after the oil crisis.

By 1980, French economic growth had shrunk to two percent compared to its pre-oil crisis rate of above six percent - a rate which France and most rich states have not seen since.

In the years that followed, governments around the world reacted in their fashion: Britain's Margaret Thatcher faced down Britain's unions in a drive to free up labor markets, while Scandinavian leaders sought to free their economies of debt.

In France, governments of left and right chose entrenchment: strong rises in public spending which helped ease the social and employment shocks but which sent national debt soaring from 20 percent of output in 1980 to its current record of 91 percent.

The next three decades are sometimes called the "Pitiful 30"

Unwilling to switch from a pre-oil crisis policy of boosting consumption with low sales taxes, French politicians used labor to fund the bulk of the welfare spend. The result, 30 years later, is that French labor charges are among the highest in the European Union with those in Sweden and Belgium.

The high productivity of its workers might have compensated for their rising cost. But decisions such as the 1997 cut in the working week from 39 to 35 hours meant many French were also starting to work less.

A 2008 paper on "the Liberation of French growth" by Jacques Attali, ex-adviser to Socialist President Francois Mitterand, calculated that while the French lived 20 years longer than they did in 1936, they worked 15 years less over their lifespan - a shortfall he labeled "35 years of extra inactivity".

"Even given that each French worker produces five percent more per hour than an American, he produces 35 percent less over his working life," he found in the 245-page report.

Even that would not be disastrous if employers simply hired more people - the whole point of the 35-hour week after all was to reduce unemployment by requiring more workers to be taken on to do the same job.

But small companies like CBN insist it was plain unrealistic to assume they can simply hire more people for the same cost and without disruption to existing work patterns.

"When they brought in the 35-hour week, I wrote a letter to our clients saying, "Sorry, but as of tomorrow, prices are going up 11 percent," recalls Boireau.

INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERS

French laws which make it difficult to lay off workers have created the perverse incentive for employers to stop offering permanent contracts that in many cases equate to a job for life.

Instead they turn to temporary contracts when they need extra labor, creating for millions of French the very labor insecurity which the law was supposed to prevent.

While today the majority of French workers still benefit from a permanent contract, three out of four new jobs are on fixed-term contracts, often for no more than a month.

The split personality of the labor market is, experts agree, a major drag on its economy. At one end there is expensive but inflexible labor and at the other cheap but ill-trained and often demoralized fill-in workers.

Roudeillac acknowledges that CBN is one of the employers who turn to temporary labor to help with peak production periods - but he would prefer not to. "We could take on six or seven more people. But in France, hiring people is a risk," he said.

For think tanks such as the OECD, the solution is simple: the first group needs to hand over some of their job security to the second group by accepting more flexible contracts. Surely such a burden-sharing should be easy for a country built on the ideals of "Liberty, equality and fraternity"?

Not a bit of it. In the past 30 years, France became not one country but two: the France of the "insiders" and the France of the "outsiders". And the reason it is so hard to reform is that the insiders are determined to keep the rest out.

Those "in" the system include workers on long-term contracts, labor groups protecting their interests, and the mostly large companies who have found an accommodation with the system. Those left "out" are the growing army of temporary contract workers, small firms such as CBN who do not have the economies of scale to allay the high cost of labor, and of course France's three million-plus unemployed.

"Neither the employers nor the trade unions want real reform - they are both in the insiders' camp," explains Eric Chaney, chief economist for insurer Axa Group. "The employers are scared of strikes and unions don't want to change anything in the system because the people they are protecting are insiders too."

Hollande has begun his plan to restore France's competitive position with corporate tax credits linked to labor hires. He has also launched a public investment bank aimed to make up for France's lack of venture capital. At his behest, French trade unions and employers have a year-end deadline to negotiate rules offering more flexibility and greater job security.

Yet it is unclear whether any accord will crack the mould. A dramatic cut in labor charges is not on the table and the 2013 budget stays clear of spending cuts sought by the reform lobby.

As CBN's managers gear up to bring the world the Lordson shirt next year, they will need Hollande to go a few steps further in helping them sell the product of French labor.

"We need something better adapted to the world now," said Boireau. "It needn't take very much."

(editing by Janet McBride)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-making-france-again-095742248--business.html

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Yahoo! Follows Through On Closing Korean Business, Cuts Around 200 Jobs

According to Reuters, Yahoo! is closing down its Korean business and cutting around 200 jobs. We've reached out to Yahoo! for comment and will update you as soon as we hear back.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/q6uE5DIUOlk/

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China's manufacturing sector perks up

Manufacturing in China is considered a barometer of the global economy because of the country's role as a powerhouse exporter.

HONG KONG (CNNMoney) -- China's manufacturing sector hit a three-month high in October on stronger new orders data, according to a key initial reading released Wednesday.

HSBC's initial purchasing manager's index for Chinese manufacturing jumped to 49.1 in October from 47.9 the previous month, the bank said Wednesday. Any reading below 50 indicates that factory growth is shrinking rather than picking up speed.

An improvement in new orders, which are now at their highest level in six months, boosted the index.

Hongbin Qu, an economist at HSBC, said the reading shows the economy is responding to stimulus measures undertaken by policymakers, but cautioned that further easing may be necessary.

"External challenges are still abound and the pressures on job market are lingering," he said. "This calls for a continuation of policy easing in the coming months to secure a firmer growth recovery."

Manufacturing in China is considered a barometer of the global economy because of the country's role as a powerhouse exporter.

China has been hit particularly hard by the recession in much of Europe. The European sovereign debt crisis has prompted steep austerity measures in many countries, and weak conditions have zapped demand in the eurozone, the largest market for Chinese exports.

In addition, the U.S. economy has slowed, further cutting demand for Chinese exports.

China's National Bureau of Statistics said last week that GDP slowed to 7.4% in the third quarter.

Related: China slowdown may be overstated

China's economy has grown at an average of around 10% a year for the past three decades, allowing the country to rocket past international competition to become the world's second largest economy.

While GDP growth was slower last quarter than many economists expected, recent data on manufacturing and exports suggest growth is beginning to rebound.

First Published: October 23, 2012: 10:32 PM ET

Source: http://money.cnn.com/rssclick/2012/10/23/news/economy/china-manufacturing-pmi/index.html?section=money_topstories

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Kids' mountain bike program likely the first of many in Old Town ...

Ten children in Old Town learned the joys of mountain biking during a monthlong program for grades 4-8 that ran mid-September through mid-October.

The program was made possible by a first-of-its-kind collaboration of three Maine-based organizations: Old Town Recreation, Maine Winter Sports Center and the Bicycle Coalition of Maine.

?They were very excited to just go out and experience the outdoors,? said Kevin McPhee, director of Old Town Recreation, which hosted the program. ?We have a river trail here in the Old Town-Orono area that goes along the Stillwater River. It?s just a beautiful bike trial, and they were able to experience that on a couple of occasions.?

Biking in the mud was their favorite part.

?They usually came back and had mud up their backs and huge smiles,? McPhee said. ?Their parents would come to pick them up and just shake their heads and smile.?

Healthy Hometowns, the community development program of the Maine Winter Sports Center, provided mountain bikes and helmets for participants, as well as training and curriculum for leaders.

?The focus of this program was on experiencing the lifelong, active outdoor pursuit of mountain biking,? said Central Maine Healthy Hometowns coach Lauren Jacobs. ?Kids had a blast exploring the trails, getting muddy and becoming skilled bikers.?

In April, L.L.Bean announced a $1 million donation to Healthy Hometowns to expand the program into a year-round, statewide effort. This donation coincides with L.L.Bean?s mission to get more children outdoors during their 100th anniversary year and beyond.

?In the past, Healthy Hometowns has been primarily cross-country ski-oriented and mostly in the County, up in Aroostook,? Jacobs said. ?With the funding in April, we can go statewide and year-round. This is the first time we?ve had equipment to use in other regions.?

The funding is providing staff, training and resources for Healthy Hometowns expand its focus to outdoor activities such as paddling, hiking, mountain biking, orienteering and camping.

So far, the donation enabled Healthy Hometowns to purchase 20 mountain bikes, three boat trailers of kayaks, and expand their ski collection to approximately 1,500 sets of skis. The program ?coaches? have started spreading out across the state, and the equipment supply will continue to grow over the next three years, Jacobs said.

The 10 children who participated in the Old Town mountain bike program gained skills and confidence through riding on local trails and fields and engaging in a variety of games and activities used to teach bike handling, shifting, braking, safety and navigating obstacles.

The Bicycle Coalition of Maine, a statewide cycling advocacy group, supported the initiative with a safety program for participants and program leadership by a coalition employee.

?Participants markedly improved their biking skills while getting great exercise and getting the opportunity to experience the great Maine outdoors as it was meant to be enjoyed,? McPhee said.

During the summer, Healthy Hometowns and Old Town Recreation worked together to provide kayaking and biking opportunities to summer camp participants. And this winter, the two organizations will work together for the third year to offer a youth cross-country ski program in conjunction with the Penobscot Valley Ski Club.

?This will be an ongoing effort,? McPhee said. ?We look forward to doing this spring, summer, fall and winter. We look forward to partnering with them each season to provide a different activity.?

Healthy Hometowns trailers filled with cross-country skis and snowshoes will travel throughout the state all winter to give children the chance to experience winter sports. Several schools in the Bangor area have booked the equipment, including schools in Winterport, Hampden, Bangor and Dover-Foxcroft.

?We are really focused on winter right now, planning winter sports, getting out calendars filled up and getting ready to do our ski weeks,? Jacobs said. ?But it won?t be long before we start thinking about spring and getting programming lined up. We already have a couple of requests ? Milo has already scheduled the mountain bikes for their outing club members for some time in May.?

For information about Healthy Hometowns, including equipment rental and outdoor programs, visit www.mainewsc.org; the Old Town Recreation Department at www.oldtownrec.com; and the Bicycle Coalition of Maine at www.bikemaine.org.

Source: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/10/24/outdoors/kids-mountain-bike-program-likely-the-first-of-many-in-old-town/

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WTAPS x Timex Military Watch

This collaboration was bound to happen eventually. Known for their military inspiration in all their clothing, Japanese brand WTAPS has worked with Timex on a classic military watch. The watch comes in an olive case with matching olive canvas NATO strap and features a small WTAPS logo placement on the dial.

Look out for the watch at WTAPS retailers from October 25, 2012.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/highsnobiety/rss/~3/DDCpAw2vRoI/

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City council meeting tonight on future of golf courses

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now)- Tucson City Council is meeting tonight to possibly decide the fate of five city golf courses, all of which are operating in the red.

There will be several ideas on the table tonight, one of those ideas is closing one of the courses, the Fred Enke Course.? Other options include better marketing, hoping to get charged less for water, having private companies run the courses and making some of the courses smaller.

The city could also be looking at the possibility of Parks and Recreation helping out in some capacity.? Some decisions could be made this evening.?

Copyright 2012 Tucson News Now All rights reserved.

Source: http://davismonthan.tucsonnewsnow.com/news/news/92649-city-council-meeting-tonight-future-golf-courses

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Lenovo IdeaTab A2109

The Google Nexus 7 ?and the New Apple iPad ?are our two top-rated tablets, representing the best combinations of price, performance, and features in small- and large-screen sizes. The Lenovo IdeaTab A2109, with an uncommon 9-inch display but a fair $299 (16GB) list price, falls somewhere in the middle. Its solid aluminum build and capable quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor are all well and good, but a chunky form and mediocre screen hold this middle-of-the-road tablet back.

Design and Features
The IdeaTab A2109 is attractively designed, with a brushed aluminum body and distinctive concave edges. But at 9.3 by 6.5 by 0.46 inches (HWD) and 1.26 pounds, it's not exactly sleek. Along the left edge is a 3.5mm headphone jack, a tough-to-slide Orientation Lock switch, and Volume buttons. The bottom panel is bare, while the right side is home to micro USB and micro HDMI ports. Up top is a Power button, and a long plastic strip along the top of the aluminum back houses two speaker grilles and the rear-facing camera. The plastic strip is removable, revealing a microSD card slot, but the flap is very difficult to remove?so much so that it required a small flat head screwdriver to pry open. Once I accessed the slot, my 64GB SanDisk card worked fine to ratchet up the 16GB of onboard storage.?

The 9-inch size is uncommon, with most Android tablets using 7- or 10-inch displays?the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9?is one of the few tablets with a similar sized screen. With a 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution, on paper, the screen is on par with competitors using the same resolution on slightly larger displays. ?It's sharp and bright, but looks like a lower-quality display than the one found on the Asus Transformer Pad TF300, which shares the same resolution, but looks brighter with more vibrant colors.?Also, the screen has a very poor viewing angle, which makes anything off-center look washed out.

For pictures and video, you get a 3-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera.?While the cameras will suffice for stills in a pinch,?producing poor images that suffer from considerable noise and general lack of sharpness,?video is almost unuseable.?The rear-facing camera is capable of 1080p, but the resulting video is about as bad as I've seen on a tablet. Frame rates top out at 12 fps outdoors and drop below 10 indoors, with blurry, out of focus, and choppy video.

As far as connectivity, the IdeaTab A2109 is a?Wi-Fi-only tablet that hooks into 802.11b/g/n networks on the 2.4GHz band. There's also Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS on board, both of which worked fine in my tests.?

Performance and Software
Powering the A2109 is Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 processor clocked at 1.2GHz with 1GB RAM. This seems to be the new standard for mid- to high-end Android tablets, which is good, since the chip generally produces fast and responsive performance in all of the devices it powers. The A2109 scored on par with the Nexus 7 in every benchmark, and the tablet felt fast in actual use. Gaming is also solid, and unlike its Qualcomm-powered sibling, the IdeaTab S2110A, it has access to all the exclusive Nvidia gaming titles. It's also much smoother than the S2110A in general, with more polished animations and app transitions. ?

The tablet runs Android 4.0.4 "Ice Cream Sandwich" with the same modifications found on the S2110A. You get the somewhat-gimmicky 3D cube animations, but they're a lot smoother on the A2109. The home screen is populated by various Lenovo widgets, ranging from local weather to calendars and notepads. Preloaded apps include Norton Security, Evernote, Docs To Go, and some games like Cut the Rope HD. And there's a shortcut on the system bar that brings up five options for tweaking the tablet's settings.?

For video, the A2109 supports Xvid, DivX, MPEG4, H.264, and AVI videos at up to 1080p resolution. For audio, MP3, AAC, FLAC, OGG, WAV, and WMA files all played fine. The speakers, while branded with an SRS WOW HD tag, sound weak and lack any substantial bass response.

In our battery rundown test, which loops a video with the screen brightness set to maximum and Wi-Fi switched on, the A2109 lasted an underwhelming 6 hours and 46 minutes. For comparison, the 7-inch Nexus 7 lasted 10 hours, 37 minutes, while the larger screen TF300 lasted 7 hours, 53 minutes on the same test.

Conclusions
The Lenovo IdeaTab A2109 doesn't do enough to stand out. Its unconventional screen size may appeal to those torn between the 7-inch and 10-inch form factors, but the low-quality screen should be a concern. And while it's buoyed by a Tegra 3 chip, its overly thick build makes it less appealing. The $299 price point puts it between the $200 Nexus 7 and the $380 Transformer Pad TF300, both of which I'd recommend over the A2109. Both the Nexus 7 and TF300 offer better screens, thinner designs, and the newest version of Android, 4.1 "Jelly Bean." The A2109 isn't a bad choice per se, but there's really no reason to settle for mediocrity when better options abound.

More Tablet Reviews:
??? Lenovo IdeaTab A2109
??? Lenovo IdeaTab S2110A
??? Amazon Kindle Fire (2012)
??? Fuhu Nabi 2 Tablet
??? Fujitsu Stylistic M532
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/zYlzu8oa-Q4/0,2817,2411061,00.asp

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Washington soccer gets a dream match-up

With 14 sectional titles, a dozen trips to the state finals and three state championships to its credit, the Notre Dame boys soccer program?s success is hard for most teams to match.

But as far as Washington is concerned, you have to start somewhere. Even if somewhere is in the back yard of one of the state?s most successful teams.

Just days after claiming the first regional title in program history, the Panthers will look to claim their first sectional plaque against an Irish side seeking its third state title in five years. The two square off at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the first of two semifinals at the Class 2A Notre Dame Sectional.

?We?re feeling good about what we?ve done,? said Washington coach Jeff Brooks, who guided his team to its first Mid-Illini Conference championship this fall.

?But we?ve been wanting this game for a long time.?

While the challenge may be great, the reward will be far greater should the Panthers pull off the upset.

And in what has been a season of firsts for Washington, the chance to play for a sectional title seems like a natural progression.

But despite their success this season, the Panthers aren?t overlooking anybody, especially the Irish.

?Obviously it?s our biggest game to date,? Brooks said. ?But we feel like if we play our best game we have a chance against anybody.?

SPEAKING OF ND: As usual, Notre Dame seems to be hitting its stride about the right time.

Not that the Irish ever lost it, but with an eight-game win streak that has produced a 40-4 difference in goals, the sectional hosts are rolling right along.

Statistically speaking, senior Drew Whalen has led the Irish offense with 28 goals and 21 assists.

Alex Garcia, the reigning JS Player of the Year, has been just as potent for ND with 18 goals and 25 assists. Fellow senior Ben Fiddes has contributed 14 goals and 19 assists.

The Irish defense, which has allowed 17 goals this season, has also posted ten shutouts.

PREPPED POTTERS: Confidence boosters can come in any number of ways.

And for a Morton side that has been struggling to find consistency this season, one may have come in the form of a loss.

Facing Notre Dame in the regular season finale for both teams, the Potters became one of a handful of teams to take a lead on the Irish when Jonah Greving scored in the 26th minute of play on Sept. 11th at ND.

That goal gave the Potters a 1-0 lead heading into halftime, but the Irish responded with three goals after the break to get the nonconference victory.

Prior to that loss, the last time that the Potters were on the Irish? home field was in the 2010 sectional final.

In that game, the Potters took the nationally ranked Irish into overtime tied at 1-1 before an 87th-minute goal by Vince Cicciarelli gave the eventual Class 2A state champs the victory.

Having won its sixth regional title in seven years, the Potters will need to defeat Morris in order to set up a potential rematch with the Irish.

If they advance, the Potters would match their season-high win streak (three) while advancing to the sectional final for the third year in a row.

MORE ON MORRIS: The change to the three-class system has been both kind and harsh to the Redskins.

Since the change was initiated back in 2008, Morris has increased its regional title count from zero to three. But an 0-2 record in sectional play, with losses of 3-0 and 6-1, has been an issue thus far.

The Redskins are hoping that a diverse attack, led by Chava Villanueva and Ricardo Del Toro, could change that.

Josh Wessler can be reached at 686-3214 or jwessler@pjstar.com
?

Source: http://www.pjstar.com/sports/x470409184/Washington-soccer-gets-a-dream-match-up

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Technology brings new life to the study of diseases in old bones

ScienceDaily (Oct. 22, 2012) ? A study led by The University of Manchester has demonstrated that new technology that can analyse millions of gene sequences in a matter of seconds is an effective way to quickly and accurately identify diseases in skeletons.

Professor Terry Brown, working in partnership with Professor Charlotte Roberts from Durham University, used a next generation sequencing approach, including hybridization capture technology, to identify tuberculosis genes in a 19th century female skeleton found in a crypt in Leeds.

Their study is part of wider research into the identification of strains of TB in skeletons dating from 100 AD to the late 19th century. It's hoped that understanding how the disease has evolved over time will help improve treatments and vaccines. TB rates have been increasing around the world, and it's estimated that one third of the world's population has latent TB. After HIV it kills more people than any other infectious disease.

Certain strains of TB affect the sufferer's bones, especially in the spine. The marks made by the disease remain evident on the bones long after the person's death. It's this evidence that Professor Roberts used to find suitable skeletons to screen for tuberculosis genes.

She sourced 500 skeletons from across Europe that showed evidence of TB dating from the Roman period to the 19th century. Bone samples from these skeletons were screened for TB DNA, and of those 100 were chosen for this particular study.

Professor Roberts explains: "So many skeletons were needed as it's very hard to tell if any DNA will have survived in the bones. You don't really know if there will be any present until you start screening and in the past that has been a lengthy process."

Professor Terry Brown then took on the search for TB DNA in the skeletons. Each small section of bone was ground up and placed in a solution. That was then put in a special machine which captured every gene sequence in the DNA. Millions of sequences were captured and sent to a computer.

Professor Brown and his team then searched for the gene sequences for tuberculosis. Because it is a bacterial disease the bacteria's DNA can remain in the bones after death.

Talking about the process Professor Brown said: "Previously we could only scan the bone sample for specific genes. We wouldn't see everything that was there which meant we could easily miss other genetic information that could be relevant. Using the hybridization screening meant we could search for different strains of TB, not just one."

About 280 bits of sequence in the DNA were found to match known tuberculosis genes. The data placed the historic strain of TB in a group that is uncommon today, but was known to have been present in North America in the 19th century. In fact it was found to be very similar to a strain recorded in a tuberculosis patient in New York in 1905.

Discussing the results Professor Brown says: "The fact that this particular strain of TB was found in both North America and in the skeleton from 19th century Yorkshire is not necessarily unusual. There were many migrants from Britain to America during the 19th century so it makes sense that TB strains were spread."

One of the downsides of hybridization capture identified by the researchers in this study was that it is possible to mistakenly identify DNA. Because it looks at all the sequences across the sample it may identify DNA that isn't from the bone, but actually from the surrounding soil or environment where the skeleton was buried.

In this study the results were checked using the more traditional method of polymerase chain reactions and were found to be accurate. The researchers concluded that using hybridization capture and next generation gene sequencing is an accurate and effective way to obtain detailed genotypes of ancient varieties of tuberculosis. It could potentially be used to study other diseases. Their findings have been published in the journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Professor Roberts says: "We're really pleased with the results of this study and that the technology works. It will save a lot of time in the future. We now hope to publish more of the huge amounts of data we have acquired from the sequencing"

The scientists hope to compare their results with similar studies being done in America to assess what tuberculosis strains have been identified there. They're interested in studying which strains were brought to the country by migrants and what impact those had on the native strains of the disease.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Manchester, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Abigail S. Bouwman, Sandra L. Kennedy, Romy M?ller, Richard H. Stephens, Malin Holst, Anwen C. Caffell, Charlotte A. Roberts, and Terence A. Brown. Genotype of a historic strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. PNAS, October 22, 2012 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1209444109

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/9Mm4InrBnzc/121022162554.htm

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Mayor McGinn's on Today's City Council Police Monitor Coup: "We believe that their vote was a mistake..."

At a little after 5:00 p.m. this evening, Mayor Mike McGinn released a statement acquiescing to the Seattle City Council's decision to hire Merrick Bobb, a man with 20 years of experience in police reform and use-of-force, as the man to monitor Seattle's journey to police reform. Here's the backstory, if you have no idea what the fuck I'm jabbering on about, and here's Mayor Mike McGinn's concessionary statement:

We know from the experience of other cities that reform efforts are successful when the police force buys in to the effort. Our office and others expressed concerns that Mr. Bobb would not be seen as an impartial monitor of our settlement agreement with the Department of Justice. We are disappointed that the Council did not listen to those concerns and that our reform efforts may prove more difficult as a result of their vote. We believe that their vote was a mistake, but respect that this is now the City?s position. Going forward, the mayor will roll up his sleeves and continue to work with all stakeholders to implement reform in our police force.

Source: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/10/22/mayor-mcginns-on-todays-city-council-police-monitor-coup-we-believe-that-their-vote-was-a-mistake

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Homebrewing: Making an Oatmeal Stout | The Homestead Fritz

So, I only have a 6-pack left of the Kolsch that I brewed back in April. ?Yes, I should be drinking it faster, but I?ve been busy over the Summer. ?I also don?t do much brewing in the heat, I don?t like to heat up the kitchen. ?I decided that since Winter is coming, I should do a brew more fitting for the season. ?I decided on an Oatmeal Stout. ?I think this will drink well on a cold Winter day after shoveling the driveway.

Note:? Please keep in mind that any equipment that comes into contact with fermented food should be?sanitized?prior to use.

As I?ve said before, I?m not expert. ?I just like to brew a couple of batches a year. ?Since I already own the equipment, I think that I save money over buying a comparable beer. ?Granted, if I buy my standard light beer it isn?t cheaper. ?But buying a good quality beer is much more expensive than brewing a batch of homebrew.

Ingredients

• ?1 (3.3 lbs) Can Amber unhopped malt extract
• 2 lbs. dark dry malt extract
• 1/2 lb. roasted barley
• 1/2 lb. chocolate malt
• 1 lb. flaked oats
• 1.5 oz. Northern Brewer hop pellets
• 1 pkg. Nottingham dry yeast
• 3/4 cup priming sugar

Steeping the grains

A day or 2 before brew day, make a yeast starter.

Put the flaked oats, the roasted barley and the chocolate malt into 2 grain bags. ?Steep the grains in about 2 gallons of water at about 155F for 30 minutes. ?Remove the grain bags, allowing them to drain, but do not squeeze them.

Adding the malt

Remove the pan from the heat so the malt will not scorch. ?Add the liquid malt extract and stir well to incorporate it. ?Add the dry malt extract and stir until it all mixes in. ?Return to the heat and bring to a boil.

?

?

Hop pellets

Add the hops and boil for 45 minutes. ?The hops come in 1 ounce packages, so I had to buy 2 packages. ?Since these are used in the boil to add bitterness to the beer, I measured out 1 1/2 ounces to ensure that the beer isn?t too bitter.

?

Pitching the yeast

Remove from the heat and cool the wort as quickly as possible. ?Many people place the brew pot in an ice bath. ?This time around, I made up a big block of ice from filtered water to put in the fermentation vessel. ?This cools the wort very quickly, but takes some planning since ice in the freezer will pick up off flavors with time. ?Pitch the yeast once the wort is 70-80F.

Put on the lid and attach an air lock. ?Put the fermentation vessel in a cool dark place to ferment. ?In about 5 days, I will transfer the beer into a glass carboy to finish fermenting. ?My main reason for using a secondary fermentation vessel it so I end up with a clear beer.

Source: http://fritzmonroe.com/fritz/2012/10/22/homebrewing-making-an-oatmeal-stout/

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Weekend Wrap Up! ? Movie review edition | OHN -You know your ...

Hey good peoples Beth here!

I?m just going to jump right in this quick movie review.

Went to see Alex Cross this weekend, against my better judgement!

Anyway, was it a bad movie? Good Lord yes! Was it Tyler Perry?s fault? Good Lord NO!

Now I?m not the typical crab in the barrel type black person. I don?t see the point in or the need in tearing Tyler Perry down and blaming him for the lack of quality black films. I happen to like Tyler and what he?s done in his career. I will not be the typical black person and try to tear him down. As my mentor would say you don?t have to tear a person down so that you can shine.

But anyway, lets talk about this horrid movie!

First of all what the hell was James Patterson thinking!?

Oh I know he was thinking about the dolla dolla bills y?all!

More specifically (or pacifically for the ebonic speaking folks out there) GM?s money!

When I first heard they moved the story to Detroit (the entire series is based in DC) I was angry and confused.

Well until I saw GM all up in through the movie. From the sexy ass caddy the villain was driving, to the proposed new Detroit Downtown that had GM as the center of it. Even the parked cars were GM cars.

Watching this movie was like watching a really bad Lifetime movie!

Everyone?s acting was bad in this movie. EVERYONE! Even Cicely Tyson couldn?t do right in this movie.

The truly sad part about it is how butchered the storyline is, James Patterson should be ashamed of himself for doing this to his own book series. It was just sad and you could tell it was all about the money. He didn?t give 2 damns or 3 fuggs about the integrity of the books.

When we (my niece and I) walked out of the theater we both said the only good thing about this movie was the car Matthew Fox drove. Lawd that Cadillac was so damn sexy! I?d eff the ish out of that car!

Anyway, how was your weekend?

Source: http://ohnblog.com/newohnblog/2012/10/22/weekend-wrap-up-movie-review-edition/

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Understanding Email Marketing Basics | THMG.com

Saturday, October 20th, 2012

Email marketing services actually provide techniques that allow maximization of time and reduction in costs with regards to marketing activities for reaching out to a huge number of people through the simple click of a button. Through the use of email marketing campaign, it is possible for the business organization to cut down on its cost of communication with targeted consumers. There is absolutely no need to print a lot of business related material or contact customers through phone since email marketing is a very simple process allowing the business to connect with its users in the best possible manner.

While going ahead with your email marketing campaign, it is possible to employ email list management activities so that there is guaranteed return from your efforts. Since some of the solutions being offered are permission based, make sure to send mails only when you

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Source: http://www.thmg.com/email-marketing/understanding-email-marketing-basics/

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Is Article Marketing Still Relevant to Make Money Online In 2012?

People who are doing online businesses know the vast opportunities for them to grow their ventures through article marketing. Since business promotion through the net has gained a lot of popularity, more and more entrepreneurs turn to article marketing professionals. This has also paved the way for prolific writers to make money online. Article writers are in demand and their pay can be substantial. With this, can we say this confidently that article marketing will continue to be relevant up to the end of the year and thereafter?

article marketing

I personally believe that article marketing will have a lot of demand not only until the end of 2012 but even more so in the years to come. So ? Yes! Article marketing will continue to be one of the best and most cost-effective ways for attaining success and business growth. With article marketing, businesses can promote their websites by creating links to their sites through various articles that are distributed on the internet.

However, businesses need to remember that the quality of articles will be testimonies to the quality of the product. So, only good quality articles will make a difference. As long as there is the internet, article marketing will be the way to let the world know about business products.

Traditional advertising method compared to digital article marketing

Let us turn back the hands of time. Several decades ago, the general populace read ads in newspapers, magazines and pamphlets. Although these are still used today, the use of the internet is more practical for many people today. As long as you can tap the computer?s keyboard and have a good internet connection, you can always find what you are looking for by simply surfing the net. And of course, there are lots of advertisements and deals offered on the internet today. So, businesses can use their website and article marketing to promote themselves on the internet.

If article marketing ceases to be used in the future, what can be the alternative? Well, we are reaching the end of the year 2012 and there seems to be none yet. In fact, search engine optimization field has increased the value of quality article marketing. As long as the internet exists with the opportunity to reach a worldwide audience, there will be a space for online businesses and article marketing ro exist and be a consistent vessel to make a business grow on the internet.

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Tagged as: article marketing, articles of marketing, internet article marketing, internet marketing, marketing articles, SEO, traffic for website, web promotion

Article by pammyewell

I am a keen writer and have been posting on blogs and forums for many year. My ultimate goal is to go professional as I love sharing my experiences with others and helping them be more informed.

has written 1 awesome articles for us at SEO BLOGGING TIPS

Source: http://akhilendra.com/marketing-articles/

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Video: Obama apologizes to Matthews for debate performance

Galaxies still evolving in present universe

??Graceful in their turnings, spiral galaxies were thought to have reached their current state billions of years ago. A study of hundreds of galaxies, however, upsets that notion revealing that spiral galaxies, like the Andromeda Galaxy and our own Milky Way, have continued to change.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/49482871#49482871

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MonitorDaily - Article Archive ? Caveat Lessor: Lessons Learned ...

When law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf filed for Chapter 11 protection, it was obligated to its equipment lessors (including Winthrop Resources, U.S. Bank Equipment Finance and SunTrust) in an amount in excess of $45 million. Jeffrey Wurst and Bertrand Choe explain what led to Dewey's collapse and offer advice regarding key indicators of a potential lessee's fiscal irresponsibility.

Victims of bankruptcy come in many forms. They include the debtors themselves, as well as their secured and unsecured creditors. When professional service companies fall into bankruptcy, leasing companies are among the hardest hit. Typically, when a company leases equipment, the value of that equipment drops faster than the income generated from lease payments. Thus, during the earlier periods of the lease, the leasing company is at its greatest risk of incurring losses.

During the past four years alone, a mere sampling of the list of law firm and professional service companies that have declared bankruptcy includes Howrey LLP, Thelen LLP, Heller Ehrman LLP, Dreier LLP, PMI Group, MF Global and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The most recent, and the largest, law firm to file for Chapter 11 protection is Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP.

After more than half of its partners defected and after failed attempts at a merger, on May 29, 2012, Dewey filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Many theories abound as to the cause(s) of Dewey?s collapse but essentially, the crux appears to be that Dewey guaranteed an unsustainable amount of compensation to both newly acquired and longstanding partners. Dewey subsequently took on debt, which coincided with the recent recession. Further exacerbating Dewey?s collapse was an enormous divide in salary between senior and junior lawyers, with the ratio of salaries being reported at between 12:1 and 15:1. Then, as Dewey?s fa?ade showed cracks, partner defections (along with their clients) resulted in even less revenue for the firm.

Dewey & LeBoeuf was the product of a merger between firms Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae in 2007. Legacy Dewey was struggling at the time, with its net income plummeting by $80 million in one year. In that same time, legacy LeBoeuf?s net income rose by over $100 million. Still, legacy Dewey offered its prestigious name, and both firms believed that a larger firm was required to compete in the legal market. What legacy LeBoeuf did not know, apparently, was that legacy Dewey had not just been losing profits, but was in debt.

Almost immediately, Dewey & LeBoeuf poached lawyers from other firms, offering guaranteed long-term contracts at high salaries. Several partners were even given packages of more than $5 million annually. In the fall of 2011, Steven Davis, Dewey?s former chairman, revealed that almost 100 lawyers had been given guarantees. However, incoming revenue was not enough to satisfy the exorbitant salaries. In fact, since the creation of Dewey & LeBoeuf, partner distributions always far exceeded net income. Furthermore, contributions to pension plans were deferred to future years.

In March 2010, Dewey raised $125 million in a private bond offering, an extremely rare course of action for a law firm. However, the offering contained no ?risk factors,? which in hindsight should have served as a red flag. In fact, it turns out that Dewey failed to disclose the guarantees to partners in its offering.

Dewey?s books were not much better. Dewey reported its annual revenue to American Lawyer Media by totaling the year?s cash receipts plus outstanding accounts receivable at the year end. The next year, collection of the accounts receivable was then attributed to the cash receipts, thus double-counting these amounts.

When Dewey filed for Chapter 11 protection it was obligated to its equipment lessors (including Winthrop Resources, U.S. Bank Equipment Finance and SunTrust) in an amount in excess of $45 million ? an extraordinary amount in light of the assets available to recover against.

The case of Dreier LLP had several similarities with Dewey. Dreier, like Dewey, enticed lawyers with lavish compensation packages. Some attorneys were paid more than $25,000 per week. Furthermore, despite expanding, Dreier still operated at a net loss at about $1 million per month. Unlike Dewey, however, Dreier had only one equity partner that conducted all financial and administrative functions. As a result, Dreier?s books were more opaque than those of Dewey.
When Dreier filed for bankruptcy in 2008, the firm?s schedules showed several equipment lessors as unsecured creditors, including Canon Business Solutions-East and Canon Financial Services, Inc. One week after filing its schedules, Dreier moved to reject its equipment leases with Canon, which motion was granted unopposed, leaving Canon with a general unsecured claim deemed to have accrued before the petition date. Canon Business filed two proofs of claim for $28,237.88 and $18,168.78, while Canon Financial filed a proof of claim for $416,606.22. To add insult to injury, Dreier then brought a preference action seeking to recover over $25,000 from Canon Business.

The vast majority of leases Dreier entered into with Canon Financial were 36 month leases entered into in 2008, a few months before Dreier entered into bankruptcy. Despite the short amount of time between leasing the equipment and the petition date, the equipment lost much of its value as soon as it was installed at Dreier?s offices. Thus, the return of Canon?s equipment failed miserably to come close to the worth of the remainder of the lease, contributing to almost a half million dollars in claims. The Dreier bankruptcy has yet to come to a close, but a return of pennies on the dollars for Canon and other equipment lessors is almost inevitable.

It goes without saying that equipment lessors should avoid dealing with law firms and professional service companies that exhibit red flags for an imminent bankruptcy. However, an equipment lessor?s due diligence should not stop after the lease is entered into; instead, the lessor should monitor the lessee throughout the life of the lease. If Dewey?s bankruptcy has taught us anything, it is that there are certain indicators of fiscal irresponsibility. Watch for: 1.) deferred returns of capital to partners; 2.) reallocation of income in the company; 3.) unusually high lines of credit; 4.) wide disparities in pay amongst the professionals; 5.) deferred contributions to pension plans; and 6.) any attempts to creatively define net income. Of course, it is difficult to predict whether a company or law firm will go bankrupt. Exercising sound credit judgment prior to extending the leasing facility, however, will mitigate these kinds of risks.

Jeffrey A. Wurst is a partner at Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, P.C. in Uniondale, NY, where he chairs the firm?s Financial Services, Banking and Bankruptcy Department. Bertrand Choe is an associate in that department.

Source: http://www.monitordaily.com/caveat-lessor/

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Petrobras to cut costs by up to $7.5 billion in '13: source

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil state-led oil company Petrobras plans to cut between 5 billion reais and 15 billion reais ($2.5 billion and $7.5 billion) from its operational costs next year, sources with direct knowledge of the plans said on Friday.

The cuts are part of Petrobras' "Procop" cost-optimization program that will start in January and were announced in an internal company presentation on Thursday by Chief Executive Maria das Gra?as Foster, the sources said.

Petrobras has not published an official estimate of the value of the expected savings.

The plan is aimed at helping Foster find ways to revive stagnant production and boost cash flow to pay for a $237 billion, five-year expansion, one of the world's largest corporate investment programs.

Despite high spending levels and the discovery of some of the world's largest offshore oil fields in the past five years, Petrobras has missed all its annual production targets for a decade, and August oil and natural gas output fell to a 22-month low.

For the second quarter, Petrobras posted a 1.35 billion real loss, its first in 13 years.

Procop is focused on areas that accounted for 63 billion reais ($31 billion) of spending in 2011, the "manageable portion" of the company's 199 billion reais of outlays registered in Petrobras' 2011 accounts as cost of goods sold and operational expenses, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

The statement said the company had identified 28 areas where costs and "optimizations" could be made, but did not say how much it planned to save with its program.

(Reporting by Jeb Blount and Sabrina Lorenzi; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Gerald E. McCormick and Leslie Gevirtz)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/petrobras-plans-cut-5-billion-15-billion-2013-114303611--finance.html

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Poetry in motion: Gemini Observatory releases image of rare polar ring galaxy

ScienceDaily (Oct. 18, 2012) ? When the lamp is shattered, The light in the dust lies dead. When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed.

These words, which open Shelley's poem "When the Lamp is Shattered," employ visions of nature to symbolize life in decay and rebirth. It's as if he had somehow foreseen the creation of this new Gemini Legacy image, and penned a caption for it. What Gemini has captured is nothing short of poetry in motion: the colorful and dramatic tale of a life-and-death struggle between two galaxies interacting. All the action appears in a single frame, with the stunning polar-ring galaxy NGC 660 as the focus of attention.

Polar-ring galaxies are peculiar objects. Astronomers have found only a handful of them, so not much is known about their origins. Most have an early-type spiral system, called a lenticular galaxy, as the central showpiece. But NGC 660, which lies about 40 million light-years distant toward the direction of Pisces the Fishes, is the only polar-ring galaxy known with what is called a late-type lenticular galaxy as its host. All, however, display a ring of stars, dust, and gas that extends tens of thousands of light-years across space along an orbit nearly perpendicular to the main disk.

Models of how polar-ring galaxies form offer two general formation scenarios: 1) a piercing merger between two galaxies aligned roughly at right angles, or 2) when the host galaxy tidally strips material from a passing gas-rich spiral and strews it into a ring.

What you see in this new Gemini Legacy image, then, is not a single dynamic body but either the "bloody" aftermath of one galaxy piercing the heart of another or the remains of a furious tidal struggle between two galaxies that shattered one galaxy's "lamp," scattered its dust and gas, and formed a colorful, 40,000-light-year-long ring of visual glory.

Born of Violence

Brian Svoboda of the University of Arizona, who recently studied the chemical and temperature environment of NGC 660, believes that unique morphology arises from a previous interaction with a gas-rich galaxy. The geometry of NGC 660 -- an enormous edge-on polar ring (some 40,000 light-years across) -- contains more gas (and associated star formation) than its host, which strongly suggests a violent formation. "One of the main characteristics of NGC 660 is that the ring is not truly polar, but is inclined ~45 degrees from the plane of the disk," Svoboda points out. "The simulations for the piercing mergers cannot reproduce these low inclination polar rings; however, the tidal accretion scenario can."

NGC 660's polar ring resolves into hundreds of objects, a considerable part of which are blue and red supergiant stars. The youngest detected stars in the ring formed only about 7 million years ago, indicating a long, ongoing process.

"Gemini's incredible definition of the active star forming regions strewn through the polar ring in NGC 660, juxtaposed against the exquisite crossing dust lanes, is simply beautiful. It really is the most incredible picture I've seen of the galaxy," Svoboda exclaims. "None of the other images I've seen, including those from the Hubble Space Telescope, show the star forming regions with such clarity."

Weighing the Evidence

If NGC represents a merging of two galaxies, astronomer would expect to find a collapsed core and a burst of star formation, which they do see. But the monkey wrench is the uniquely high gas content of both NGC 660's disk component and its polar ring.

"A tidal accretion event will place gas in the polar ring without strongly interacting with the original gas rich host," Svoboda explains. "Tidal interaction is consistent with an influx of gas into the nuclear region creating the starburst that we observe now." Further evidence, he says, is NGC 660's lack of a double nucleus (i.e. two super-massive black holes), which one would expect from a merger.

Astronomers have not detected any "tails" extending from NGC 660, a key signature of many tidal interactions. Usually, when galaxy passes close to another, tidal forces eject stars, gas, and dust into a graceful tail of extragalactic debris and stretched them far into space. But both polar-ring models have produced systems without tidal tails while creating active star formation in the polar ring.

While it can't be proven with a great deal of confidence, in the case of NGC 660, Svoboda says, "I think that there is good evidence to suggest that the origin of the polar ring lies in the tidal accretion event scenario." Particularly he notes that the ring may be about 1 billion years old, so the stripped galaxy could have moved out of the field by the time of our observations now.

Life from Death?

Unseen to the eye, but bright at radio wavelengths, is a compact source (less than 32 light-years in extent) at the host's core. Believed to be a super cluster of stars in a dense cloud of dust and gas, this powerful radio emitter contains perhaps a few thousand hot, blue youthful stars.

Galaxies usually have a majority of old red stars at their cores, but one of the violent scenarios that created NGC 660 has triggered a furious burst of star formation at the galaxy's core. Either way, the gravitational interaction between the two galaxies created shock waves that plowed into giant clouds of gas, causing them to collapse into behemoth blue stars, many likely containing more than 100 times the mass of our Sun. These monstrous, short-lived, stars exploded shortly thereafter as supernovae, which generated more shock waves, creating a domino effect that has ever since perpetuated the creation of youthful stars at NGC 660's core. NGC 660, then, is not only a polar-ring galaxy but also a starburst galaxy. These systems are among the most dense and intense star-forming environments known.

Probing Dark Matter

The ring in a polar-ring galaxy rotates at a speed comparable to that of its host galaxy. By determining how fast a polar ring rotates at different distances from the center of the system, astronomers can search for evidence of elusive and mysterious dark matter in NGC 660's halo. Radio observations have shown that while the ring's velocity close to NGC 660's core is normal, the velocity in the ring's outer parts remains consistent; theoretically the rotational velocity should have dropped off significantly due to the region's gas-poor environment. This finding points to the existence of huge amounts of dark matter in NGC 660.

Astronomers believe dark matter influences the dynamics of all galaxies. Yet understanding dark matter remains one of the astronomy's greatest challenges. Further observations of the enigmatic environment of NGC 660 may shed more light on this ? well ? dark matter.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/4R5tCeXVN_U/121018185949.htm

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Video: Disappointing Earnings Fuel Selloff

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/49481497/

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Revocable Trust Planning Thwarts Creditors - Washington Estate ...

Sometimes you may hear ?revocable trusts
provide no asset protection? ? now you know that is only half-true.

Trusts are powerful devices. In
fact, even ?revocable? trusts can afford valuable protection. Consider the case
of Frank and Geryl Pearl, as reported in a recent Forbes article titled ?Pearl -- Transfers to Revocable Trusts Were
Not Fraudulent Transfers As To Creditors Of The Settlor.?

Essentially, the Pearl case
illustrates the magic of a revocable trust. Frank, upon a cancer diagnosis,
moved his business assets under a revocable trust, which meant that he was
still effectively accountable for everything because the ?revocable? trust was
still under his control for all intents and purposes. Frank arranged for the
bank to name him personally as guarantor to the business loans. Geryl was named
beneficiary to the trust. When Frank died, the assets in the trust that were
otherwise entirely accessible to the bank and other creditors passed over to
Geryl and were completely inaccessible to the creditors. Poof! How did this
happen? As summarized by Forbes:

?It should not be overlooked that a revocable trust can
provide near-absolute asset protection to the beneficiaries of the trust after
the settlor dies, so long as the trust is well-drafted, has only discretionary
distribution, and a solid spendthrift clause. What is no protection for the settlor
almost magically turns into fantastic protection for beneficiaries after the
settlor?s death. A beneficiary?s interest is simply not acceptable by creditors
except in the most extreme cases, such as unpaid child support or if the
beneficiary commits a violent crime, etc.?

The Pearl case is an interesting
one for those planning their estates (and their creditors). To learn more you
can consult the Forbes article, the
case itself (as cited in the article), and consult with competent legal counsel
before relying on this case in your own planning.

Reference: Forbes
(September 30, 2012) ?Pearl -- Transfers to Revocable Trusts Were
Not Fraudulent Transfers As To Creditors Of The Settlor?

Source: http://blog.moultonlaw.com/2012/10/revocable-trust-planning-thwarts-creditors.html

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Sprint buys majority control of Clearwire

NEW YORK (AP) ? Sprint is buying out the founder of Clearwire to gain majority control of the wireless network operator. The move follows the pledge by Japan's Softbank to infuse Sprint with cash by buying a majority stake in it.

Sprint Nextel Corp. says in a regulatory filing Thursday that it will pay wireless pioneer Craig McCaw and his holding company $100 million for a 5 percent stake in Clearwire, pushing Sprint's stake above 50 percent.

Clearwire has the right to use a large share of the nation's airwaves, but lacks the money to renovate and expand its network. Sprint has been struggling financially too, and hasn't been in a position to invest in Clearwire until Monday's announcement that Japanese cellphone company Softbank would buy 70 percent of Sprint for $20 billion.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-10-18-Sprint-Clearwire/id-5793f4e941c240da901e6589a5b739f7

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