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Kitchen Lighting
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Kitchen Lighting - Buying Guide
Functional Excellence and Premium Quality Design
Kitchen lighting brightens culinary workspaces and counters. High-quality kitchen lighting serves more than mere sources of illumination. They offer a decorative touch that compliments the modern or traditional look of the house. Our extensive range of kitchen lighting is energy efficient, stylish, and elegant complements different home décors.
At Interior Deluxe, you can find a large collection of stylish kitchen lighting manufactured by brands such as >Alma Light >Almerich >Domus >Flos >Penta>LBL Lighting and many others. All of the lighting solutions that you can find in our stock boast flawless finishing, high-quality materials, and classy design.
We offer Window board Lighting, Lighting for the kitchen table, Lighting for cabinets and kitchen counter, and Kitchen ceiling lights. This lighting adds to the aesthetics of any home décor. The modern kitchen lighting fixtures are available in different styles including Modern / Contemporary, Transitional, and Traditional / Old world.
Kitchen Ceiling Lighting
The Formosa C1 pendant light designed by Aldo Cibic for Anton Angeli is an ideal incandescent lighting for the kitchen. The suspension mounted lighting has an asymmetrical textural shape, which can be used either independently or with a wall, floor, table, and suspension lamps. The construction of this luxury lighting features quality textile fabric available in red or white color.
For something truly unique modern lighting for the kitchen, Cellula Chandelier - 47 inches- 9 bulb from Anthologie Quartett is worth consideration. It was designed for Penta by Anthologie Quartett and features ornate design, elegantly illuminating the space. The lighting features original Swarovski crystal glass prisms with red, blue, or green crystal options.
People who have a taste in abstract art will like the Rachel low voltage pendant lamp from LBL Lighting. This exclusive kitchen lighting features high-quality Murano glass that is not only pleasant to look at but also offers excellent illumination. Available in three different colors, the lighting fixture is perfect for making a bold artistic statement.
If you fancy something a slightly less artistic for your kitchen ceiling, Drop pendant light from Anta will not disappoint you. The lamp was designed by Fiedeler and Raasch and features a premium quality glass drop with metal details in anodized aluminum.
Lighting for the kitchen table
The kitchen table too deserves a high-quality lighting fixture. The right lighting for the kitchen table can significantly add to the appeal of the kitchen. Mega Bulb Pendant Light from &Tradition is the ideal lighting fixture to hang above the kitchen table. Designed by Sofie Refer for &Traditions, the lighting is composed of premium quality mount blown glass with a polished edge. The electrical components of the lighting fixture are made of stainless steel, making it perfect for humid environments. Available in transparent glass and silver, the lighting looks elegantly straightforward and pleasing at the same time.
Cloud XL Suspension Light from BELUX is a spectacular lighting fixture that looks amazing from all angles. The lighting fixture has been designed by Fran Gehry for Belux. It provides a natural look and amazing feel to any environment. It comes with either a dimmable or on/off configuration.
In case you want something simpler yet futuristic and modern at the same time, the Discoco Large Pendant Light from Marset is certainly one of the best for homes and offices. This graceful piece of lighting creates and elegant atmosphere. Each light of the lighting fixture is made of 35 opaque disks that are coated with a bright white lacquer. This creates a reflective light that greatly adds to the charm of the place
For a more subtle yet impressive design, you can't go wrong with the Giogali Chandelier from Vistosi . The lighting fixture was designed by Angelo Mangiarotti. It is composed of 215 handmade horseshoe rings; all interconnected to create a stunning lighting effect.
Lighting for Cabinets and Kitchen Counter
Brighten your cabinets and the kitchen counter in splendid opulence with one of our branded lights! Our extensive collection consists of both simple and complex design lighting lamps. Damasco SP G Pendant Light from Vistosi is one of the finest lights that can perfectly add to the beauty of the home décor. The light has been created using a unique approach that consists of applying molded glass threads in a blown crystal. The pendant light comes with a certificate of authenticity regarding its originality and exclusivity.
Another great lighting for cabinets and kitchen counter is the APD 01 pendant light from LumenArt. The unique and simple design of this kitchen light have made it popular among the customers. It features aluminum with stainless steel fasteners that last for a long time. The kitchen lighting reflects expert craftsmanship that can wonderfully illuminate any modern home décor.
For those of you with tastes leaning towards simple design, the Basic strip wall sconce from Artemide can perfectly complement the modern home décor. This simple yet elegant lighting is made of the extruded aluminum with anodized or white powder coated finish.
Designed by Umberto Asnago, Pan Pendant Light from Penta is also popular due to its contemporary design and perfect functionality. The lighting fixture consists of nickel satin metal with the diffuser made of either transparent hand blown glass. It displays lustrous and dazzling light that is sure to brighten any style of home décor.
Not many lighting fixtures can match the quality of craftsmanship and exquisite design of Berlin Brass Lamps lighting, and this is also the case with W7-99grB Table Lamp from Berlin Brass lamps. The light features intricate bass decorations representing a fusion of contemporary and modern design.
All of these ceiling lights feature a stylish design combined with flawless functionality, creating an exquisite ambiance. Available in variants of subtle color variations, the lighting fixture adds to the look and beauty of a kitchen.
A kitchen is a place with unique lighting requirements—you need an ambient light that is bright enough for complex tasks such as food measurement and preparation, but you also want fixtures that complement your existing home décor.
Those who require modern kitchen lighting will find an ample selection of high-quality pieces here at Interior Deluxe—everything from recessed lights to chandeliers and pendant lights, and much more!
More resources
>> Read our How to guide about the perfect Kitchen lighting
Diverse range of lighting for your kitchen
Your kitchen is the heart and soul of your home. What many people don't realize is that lighting is one of the most critical aspects of your kitchen. A well-lit kitchen adds character, warmth and reflects your personal style.
Transform your kitchen into a comfortable space for you and your family with our branded, modern kitchen lighting. From kitchen counter lighting to counter lighting, we have it all!Still not sure which Kitchen Lighting to buy?
Call us today on +1-866-477-1345 and our ALA certified lighting experts will provide you with inspirations and guide you through the process!


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Art Hack Day begins tonight, so if you're in NYC and looking for something to do, come out and see a few dozen art-hacker projects that were all made over the last two days by over 50 participants. Following are some sneak peek photos of what to expect, and these don't include the iOS jump rope software, earthquake jello project, pizza machine, 10-second GIF photobooth, and numerous other projects being assembled as I write this!
Mesh4LYFE, by Sean McIntyre, a homemade mesh network whose LEDs are displaying Conway's Game of Life
LOLDIALER by @huertanix, enter your number and prepare to be rickrolled!
3D-printed object of "Kinect space" with gold leaf by Sofy Yuditskaya, the object blends old and new world art-making techniques

subset: commoncrawl


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At time of writing, the highest rated answer to my question What is a metric space? is Tom Leinster's account of Lawvere's description of a metric space as an enriched category. This prompted my question on terminology in category theory. That question was focussed on terms in category theory that were previously in use elsewhere. It now occurs to me that there's an obvious question in the other direction:
Given that metric spaces are enriched categories, what do the standard categorical things look like?
Obvious ones are adjoint functors (which might help me get a picture of what adjoint functors really are, answering this question), monoidal structures (and symmetric monoidal structures), products and coproducts (more generally, limits and colimits), but I'm sure that there are many more "out there" and I don't want to limit the answers.
To forestall Urs Schrieber's likely first comment, I intend to stick all of this on an n-lab page sometime soon as, if my intuition is right, I think it might be a neat case study that can help topologists like me get a picture of how categories (and enriched categories) can behave.


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Sidebar: How Lidar Detects Turbulence
Like radar, lidar (light detection and ranging) can calculate objects' distances, speeds, and rotation rates by directing electromagnetic pulses at them and measuring the pulses that are reflected back. In the case of turbulence detection, the objects are tiny atmospheric particles. But unlike conventional radars, which send radio waves, lidar uses laser light, with wavelengths 10,000 to 100,000 times shorter.
The advantage of lasers is that laser light rays travel parallel to one another in a tight beam, as opposed to a radar's radio waves, which diffuse in all directions. The concentration increases the odds that the laser light will hit and reflect off of dust and other minute particles—known as aerosols—that lie directly in a lidar beam's path.
Lidar is thus ideal for detecting clear air turbulence, which has only tiny particles, not large water droplets, to reflect radiation. But for the very same reasons, lidar cannot help in examining the interior of a storm; the laser light would be reflected entirely by the outermost layers of clouds or rain. To see through moisture, conventional radar works better.
To detect CAT, lidars shoot laser pulses into the air ahead of the aircraft, where aerosols are being carried in the same direction and at the same velocity as the wind. The speed of the aerosols is measured by observing the Doppler shift of the laser reflections. If the aerosols are moving away, the returning light waves will have a lower frequency and longer wavelength than those of the original laser light; the shift will be toward the higher frequencies and shorter wavelengths if the aerosols are approaching the laser. By comparing the relative motions of aerosols in a beam's path, computers on aircraft can predict when CAT is imminent.


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i like your avatar. what is that from? i would like to get a closer look.
Lucky you, Mike Perez - great person to go shopping with. My sister and her husband lived in Athens for years, he was a professor at UGA. I visited them often. I'm also friends with Keith Strickland and Mark Hayda, they're in Key West most of the time now. Have fun, say hello to Mike.
Hi, TRex. Some time after reading your post on Thierry Mugler Cologne, my husband and I got to Nordstrom and Sephora in Seattle to check it out. He loved it, we bought it, and I think it's great on him. Thanks. This is a man who never never would wear any scent at all.
BTW, are you a lawyer? I am familiar with the use of Esq. as an honorific for lawyers, my husband being one.
Best to you and your kittehs.
Send an Instant Message to T. Rex, Esq. Using...
Basenotes is an online guide to perfume and fragrance, featuring news, a database of fragrances, perfume glossary, fragrance forums, user reviews and more.


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e-CFR Navigation Aids
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e-CFR data is current as of December 1, 2020
Title 36 → Chapter I → Part 65 → §65.1
Title 36: Parks, Forests, and Public Property
The purpose of the National Historic Landmarks Program is to identify and designate National Historic Landmarks, and encourage the long range preservation of nationally significant properties that illustrate or commemorate the history and prehistory of the United States. These regulations set forth the criteria for establishing national significance and the procedures used by the Department of the Interior for conducting the National Historic Landmarks Program.
(a) In the Historic Sites Act of 1935 (45 Stat. 666, 16 U.S.C. 461 et seq.) the Congress declared that it is a national policy to preserve for public use historic sites, buildings and objects of national significance for the inspiration and benefit of the people of the United States and
(b) To implement the policy, the Act authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to perform the following duties and functions, among others:
(1) To make a survey of historic and archeological sites, buildings and objects for the purpose of determining which possess exceptional value as commemorating or illustrating the history of the United States;
(2) To make necessary investigations and researches in the United States relating to particular sites, buildings or objects to obtain true and accurate historical and archeological facts and information concerning the same; and
(3) To erect and maintain tablets to mark or commemorate historic or prehistoric places and events of national historical or archeological significance.
(c) The National Park Service (NPS) administers the National Historic Landmarks Program on behalf of the Secretary.


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ArtRio opens amid debate on Brazil's import taxes
Gallery owner Renato Gouvea Jr. stares at a wall full of art and laments what's missing.
Sure, his exhibition at ArtRio, which opened this week and is now among the world's top art fairs, is respectable. There are paintings from masters such as Chagall and Brazilian Di Cavalcanti. But Gouvea is more ambitious.
Holding him and other Brazilian collectors back are taxes, he says. The wealthy connoisseurs flocking to the Rio show are complaining about steep import tariffs on fine art that can almost double the price of pieces bought abroad, leading many collectors to simply leave their top works outside the country.
"A friend bought a (John) Chamberlain sculpture for $400,000 at the latest Basel show in Europe and couldn't wait to bring this cool piece back to Brazil," said Gouvea, an owner of the Arte57 gallery in Sao Paulo. "Then he found out what the import taxes would be. Today, that sculpture sits in a home he has in the U.S."
Lowering art taxes for super-rich collectors doesn't rank high on the government's list of priorities, especially following recent nationwide protests over the woeful state of public hospitals, schools and infrastructure average Brazilians get in return for sky-high income tax rates.
But proponents of lowering the tariffs say it's not just an issue for the wealthy, but for all art lovers of more modest means. That's because far fewer of the world's best works are getting into Brazilian museums. Museums worldwide rely on loans from private collectors, loans especially important in nations like Brazil, where a culture of charitable support for the arts is virtually unknown and government investment lacking.
"There is absolutely zero benefit for anyone from this very antiquated system we have in place," said Brenda Valansi, the Brazilian founder and director of ArtRio, who has made lowering the import tariffs a personal crusade. "Artists don't benefit, collectors don't benefit, the state doesn't even really benefit and the Brazilian public certainly doesn't."
Valansi met with Brazil's Culture Minister Marta Suplicy in March to argue against Brazil's taxes, which are also notoriously high for other imported goods.
At the ArtRio show, where the art is for sale but is also a massively popular exhibition for the non-buying public at large, Valansi is working to draw support from among world-class art dealers and billionaire collectors for help in persuading the government to lower combined federal, state and even municipal taxes that can add 50 to 70 percent to a piece's sales price. Import duties for art in the U.S. and most other countries range from 7 to 10 percent.
The taxes are a major worry for the 105 galleries from 14 countries participating at this year ArtRio, including London's White Cube, New York's David Zwirner and Galeria Cardi of Milan in hopes of tapping into a potentially lucrative market. The five-day show opened Thursday to the general public.
Imported art isn't the only sector that protectionist Brazil taxes heavily in an effort to stimulate and protect homegrown markets. The World Bank ranks Brazil's tax system as 156th globally in ease of payments and their burden. A medium-sized Brazilian business spends 2,600 hours each year just figuring out what it owes, almost three times as many hours spent in the next most inefficient nation, Bolivia, the bank said.
"I have never seen such high import taxes anywhere in the world," said Victoria Gelfand-Magalhaes, director of the Gagosian gallery's New York branch, who labeled the tariffs as "medieval." She was in Brazil to oversee the gallery's booth at ArtRio for the second subsequent year. "It really makes it prohibitive for people here to buy international art."
Gelfand-Magalhaes said it's unlikely her gallery will open a permanent presence in Brazil under the current tax regime.
White Cube opened one in Sao Paulo late last year despite the tax issue. But the London gallery's director of exhibitions, Tim Marlow, said the space is more about introducing White Cube's artists to the Brazilian public than immediately turning a profit.
"We have a lot of artists who just want to be there in Sao Paulo," he said. "If we can't place their work with Brazilian collectors, we'll place it elsewhere."
Under a deal hammered out in a committee representing Brazil's 27 states, some buyers at ArtRio and Sao Paulo's SP Arte fair are exempt from state import taxes, but federal duties still apply. With the exemption, import duties fall to around 15 percent, depending on the medium.
But only Rio and Sao Paolo residents are eligible for the tax relief and the art fairs have to fight every year to win the federal tax exemption because it's not automatically renewed.
Glenn Scott Wright, director of the Victoria Miro gallery that has an exhibit at ArtRio, said he's seen many potential Brazilian buyers leave his London-based gallery empty-handed because of the tariffs.
"Foreign galleries want to do business here," he said, "but the fiscal system has this mysterious and convoluted tax system that makes it hard for the world to do business in Brazil, and hard for Brazilians to interact with the outside art world."
ArtRio is open to the public Sept. 5-8
Jenny Barchfield on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jennybarchfield
Bradley Brooks on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bradleybrooks


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Staff development
Personal and professional development
As a bank we invest a lot – including in our own employees. With a range of development options we support you in your personal and professional development.
Are you looking for an employer who invests not only in the company but also in its personnel?
We promote the development of our employees according to their needs and their life circumstances. On request we provide individual professional assessments and career development advice. The focus is always on determining the experience, characteristics and skills our employees need in order to be able to perform their current or future function in the best possible way.
VP Bank enables me to develop both personally and professionally.Stephanie Reinero, VP Bank (Switzerland) Ltd
Our basic principles
- We encourage and support individual desires for further training.
- We devise attractive in-house courses and seminars.
- We provide on-the-job training through multiple-months foreign placements within VP Bank Group.
- We recognise and encourage personal potential from early on.
- We carefully prepare potential managers and specialists for their leadership roles.


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VICTORIA — British Columbia's former chief electoral officer spent more than $40,000 on travel in just four months, including airfare for his wife to join him at a conference in Kenya, a self-appointed government watchdog has found.
IntegrityBC released documents Tuesday showing Craig James — acting chief electoral officer from June 2010 until August 2011, and now clerk of the B.C. Legislature — claimed $43,295 from Elections BC for travel between Aug. 25, 2010 and December 12, 2010.
"This is an individual who chose to fly in the lap of luxury whenever possible on flights, and to stay at some of the finest hotels throughout North America," IntegrityBC executive director Dermod Travis said Tuesday.
"It demonstrates a sense of a culture of entitlement," he added, saying his non-profit organization requested the travel expenses after receiving a tip about the costs.
Documents show James' expenses included $14,523.58 for he and his wife to fly to Nairobi, Kenya, to attend the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association annual conference.
Other expenses included almost $6,000 for James to attend a National Conference of State Legislatures in Arizona and almost $6,000 to attend the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws conference in Washington, D.C.
Disclosure documents posted to Elections BC's website show James' successor as chief electoral officer, Keith Archer, has spent only $15,409.17 on travel in his first 11 months on the job.
James stayed at the Cosmos Club in Washington for $298 a night, and the Arizona Biltmore — where the conference was being held, James said — for $399 a night.
On Tuesday, James defended the expenses saying they were all legitimate, and that all bookings were done in accordance with the policy of the day.
"The trip to Kenya was the annual conference for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and [New Democratic Party MLA and then deputy speaker] Claire Trevena and her husband Mike, and the speaker [Bill Barisoff] and his wife, and myself and my wife attended this conference," James said in an interview, adding he gave a talk at the conference on the recall and initiative process.
James said he was asked to give the talk because he had been overseeing the high-profile initiative vote on the Harmonized Sales Tax.
James said he was able to bring his wife because of a policy allowing senior Elections BC staff to expense two tickets — for themselves and a spouse — if they are cheaper than one business class seat.
"The practice has been that you can take that business class ticket and split it in two, provided the economy fare doesn't exceed the business class fare," said James.
Documents released Tuesday show that policy at Elections BC was contained in a document approved by James himself, shortly after he took the job.
James also said that much of his travel was subsidized by other organizations, and so taxpayers are not footing the entire cost of his travel.
"A lot of my travel is with the World Bank, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and most recently with La Trobe University, which has now been shifted over to Deakin University," he said. "It would have been significantly more if it was not subsidized."
Documents obtained by IntegrityBC through a freedom of information request show James submitted documentation showing an executive class trip on Air Canada would have cost $19,577.70. Using a group rate through a travel agent, James and his wife both flew restricted business class on KLM for a total of $14,523.58.
The release by IntegrityBC comes at a time of widespread fiscal austerity in government, with Finance Minister Kevin Falcon having cracked down on executive salaries and perks recently at several Crown corporations.
The release also came on the same day James was overseeing the first public meeting by the committee that oversees the management of the legislature and its spending.
In that meeting, James proposed that on a quarterly basis he would provide the committee with a financial report on the legislature's activities and spending.
On Tuesday, Elections BC spokesman Don Main said James's Kenya trip had been arranged when James was clerk of committees at the legislature, and before his arrival at Elections BC.
"That trip was planned before he started with Elections BC, but because that happened in his tenure while he was at Elections BC, Elections BC would have paid for that," Main said.
Main also said the province's new chief electoral officer rescinded the James-era travel policy upon his arrival, instead adopting the same rules that apply to core government agencies.
That policy states that travel expenses of a spouse can only be expensed when "a spouse is formally representing the government and a written invitation has been issued to the spouse", when "travel is to a pre-retirement seminar or awards function," or when the employee is relocating.
The Speaker's office did not respond to a question about the budget for Barisoff and Trevena to go to Kenya with their spouses, instead referring the matter back to James.
The NDP said Trevena's trip was funded entirely by the Speaker's office.


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Welcome our sweet Pixie Owlet. She comes with magical metallic wings and above all loves cuddles, magical adventures and can fit into a pocket to be taken everywhere.
This listing is for an one of a kind owl. Handmade with love using metallic linen and regular linen for the body, metallic linen fabric for wings, and filled with recycled poly. This owl is hand embroidered and has a plant and vegetable hand dyed vintage sari ribbon collar.
Please use damp cloth for spot clean and air dry.
These dolls are best suited for children over the age of 3 and for gentle play only.
Measures approximately 4 3/4" from ear to toe. 5 1/2" from ear to end of wing.


text: The iPad (pronounced /ˈaɪpæd/ eye-pad) is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. Its size and weight fall between those of contemporary smartphones and laptop computers. The iPad runs the same operating system as the iPod Touch and iPhone—and can run its own applications as well as iPhone applications. Without modification, the iPad will only run programs approved by Apple and distributed via the Apple App Store (with the exception of programs that run inside the iPad's web browser).


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For practice, the authors provide evidence about the relation between control deficiencies and substantive tests in the integrated audit. A significant minority of senior auditors attempt to identify bias in an accounting estimate with increased sampling from the biased estimation process, though they have been told that the estimation process is biased. The authors provide theory consistent empirical evidence that auditors often reach questionable, optimistic judgments about the capability of audit evidence to address control deficiencies. Auditors will often revert to what they know best, and it is difficult to get people to look beyond the familiar, regardless of experience level.
Mauldin, E. G., & Wolfe, C. J. 2014. How Do Auditors Address Control Deficiencies that Bias Accounting Estimates? Contemporary Accounting Research 31 (3): 658-680.
In the planning phase, the PCAOB and key stakeholders should consider developing an ICOFR audit risk model to serve as a conceptual planning and evaluative model. Audit firms should pay attention to aligning auditors' skill sets to their task assignments and employ other mechanisms that encourage consultations.
Scoping decisions remain underexplored. Nevertheless, anecdotal evidence suggests that auditors may be cognitively wired to scope some types of ELCs but not others. Firms may consider the interactions between auditors and client personnel that explain the tendency for auditors to evaluate only the ELCs scoped by the client.
Audit firms should pay special attention to how audit teams design testing plans to test ELCs that are not easily tested by attribute sampling methods (e.g., management philosophy and operating style). This is necessary to address concerns by PCAOB inspections that some auditors identified ELCs that appeared to be designed to operate with a high degree of precision, but failed to obtain sufficient audit evidence of their operating effectiveness.
In the evaluation phase, firms should consider mechanisms that can help auditors "imagine what could go wrong where nothing wrong has happened." Examples of such mechanisms include restructuring the task (e.g., documentation, decomposition of the task, or requirements to list what could go wrong). In the reporting phase, firms should consider having a requirement to specifically require auditors to consider the needs of a prudent official. This requirement may be a countervailing check on their detection and disclosure incentives.
For more information on this study, please contact Stephen K. Asare.
Asare, S. A., B. C. Fitzgerald, L. E. Graham, J. R. Joe, E. M. Negangard, and C. J. Wolfe. 2013. Auditors' Internal Controls over Financial Reporting Decisions: Analysis, Synthesis, and Research Directions. Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory 32 (sp1): 131-166.
The authors note a couple of implications for practitioners resulting from this study. First, given the fact that external auditors assess internal audit quality and rely upon the work similarly for outsourced and cosourced internal audit functions, it may be worthwhile for companies to consider engaging some level of independent outside service provider to work along with their in-house internal auditors for high risk areas.
Second, having the same 3rd party internal audit service provider also provide tax services results in less reliance upon the work performed by internal audit, even though those services are approved by the audit committee and performed by different individuals. Therefore, external audit increases their audit effort, thereby implying that external audit must see this additional service provision to be detrimental to the internal audit service provider's objectivity.
For more information on this study, please contact Naman K. Desai.
Desai, N. K., G. J. Gerard, and A. Tripathy. 2011. Internal Audit Sourcing Arrangements and Reliance by External Auditors. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 30 (1):149-171.
The extent to which auditors' judgments are persuaded by information from management represents asignificant issue for audit practice, especially when information from more objective sources is also available. The evidence indicates that less experienced senior auditors rely on information from management that is aligned with management's self-interest to a greater extent than more experienced audit seniors. This reliance raises a concern that some senior auditors assess audit evidence more favorably than may be warranted because they inappropriately rely on information provided by management. A lack of appropriate skepticism has the potential to make audits ineffective and expose the firm to audit failures. The study suggests the importance of carefully assigning audit tasks to auditors with an appropriate level of experience.
Kaplan, S. E., E. F. O'Donnell, and B. M. Arel. 2008. The Influence of Auditor Experience on the Persuasiveness of Information Provided by Management. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 27 (1): 67-83.
The results of this study suggests that external auditors place more reliance on "outsourced" internal audit work, especially under high inherent risk conditions, than on "in-house" internal audit work due to the external auditors' assessment of higher objectivity on the part of the "outsourced" internal auditor. The authors suggest this may have implications for external audit teams' planning and assessment of internal audit work, in that whether or not the work is outsourced might need to be considered in the assessment. Also, audit clients might consider a need to outsource more internal audit work or try to make changes to increase the external auditors' perception of their "in-house" internal audit team, in terms of objectivity.
Glover, S. M., Prawitt, D. F., and D. A. Wood. 2008. Internal Audit Sourcing Arrangement and the External Auditor's Reliance Decision. Contemporary Accounting Research 25 (1) 193-213.
The results suggest that auditors' AIS expertise can play a significant role in complex AIS settings and in their ability to compensate for CAS competence deficiencies. The authors note that it may be prudent for firms to consider the combined capabilities of individuals when assigning auditors and CAS to engagements with complex AIS.
Brazel, J. F. and C. P. Agoglia. 2007. An examination of auditor planning judgments in a complex accounting information system environment. Contemporary Accounting Research 24 (4): 1059-83.
The points noted below suggest some limitations in Glover, Prawitt & Wood (2008) article. However, Messier acknowledges that the article provides insight on some factors that might affect the external auditors' reliance decisions under AS 5.
Messier, W. F. 2008. Internal Audit Sourcing Arrangement and the External Auditor's Reliance Decision. Contemporary Accounting Research 25 (1) 215-218.


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As a 20+-year travel industry veteran, Mark has a vast, up-to-the-minute understanding of the trade as a whole and its rapidly changing media landscape. He is the founder and CEO of TravAlliancemedia, a cutting-edge travel trade media group that provides both agents and their customers unparalleled customer-driven solutions. TravAlliancemedia is also the publisher of two top industry publications, Agent@Home and Vacation Agent magazines as well as TravelPulse.com, the most visited travel trade website in the world.
When he's not in front of the camera reporting on breaking travel news or delivering a talk to other like-minded entrepreneurs, Mark feeds his own wanderlust appetite - sometimes literally! Balut, anyone? He has hiked, sailed, climbed, kayaked, Segued and rickshawed his way through more than 70 countries around the world, and brings his extraordinary first-hand experiences to the travel veteran and amateur alike.
Mark provides professional commentary for both consumer and business travelers and is a frequent expert guest on major networks and news stations such as The Today Show, CNN, Fox Business, Fox News, and ABC, CBS, and The Travel Channel.
To learn more about Mark, please visit MarkMurphyTravels.com


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Can anyone recommend a good comprehensive introduction to functions of several complex variables that a) is fairly up to date, b) isn't a geometry or an algebra book only, but takes multiple viewpoints? I don't mind texts that require a lot of background as long as they present it intelligibly.
Just as good would be links to lecture courses by experts on the subjects that are accessible and do the job.
I've seen Griffith/Harris, Grauert and Gunning's 3 volume treatise. Gunning looks the best of the three, but I was hoping for something more up-to-date. This is still a very active field. I haven't seen Krantz yet.


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Risk Based Inspection (RBI) techniques can significantly improve inspection outcomes and save money on your inspection program. ALS expertise in inspection and engineering will help you realise these benefits.
Risk based Inspection (RBI) is:
- The process of developing an inspection plan based on a risk assessment of the likelihood and consequences of failure of plant and equipment.
RBI takes into account the actual condition of the equipment as assessed in previous inspections and its current operating parameters.
Experienced ALS inspectors and engineers use this information to set inspection and test plans (ITPs, PITPs) according to the known condition of the equipment.
The traditional counter approach of RBI is statutory or code compliant inspection programs, which requires a particular set of inspections be completed at particular intervals.
These intervals are typically set in line with applicable codes and regulations and are dependent on equipment type, Hazard Level, operating parameters and the age of the equipment, not its actual condition as assessed by inspections.
The Benefits of RBI
In considering the actual condition of the vessel and its current risks of failure, ALS staff can work with our clients to use RBI to deliver significant improvements to your inspection program.
These benefits can be:
- Extension of intervals of inspection, in some circumstances extending inspection intervals many years beyond those that statutory inspection regimes specify, saving money.
- Reduction of the scope of inspections based on expected failure mechanisms. This can mean significant savings through simply less inspection tasks, through to the entire removal of inspection scopes such as internal inspections.
Our Approach and Services
ALS promotes a disciplined approach to RBI, following the principles of standards such as API 580 and API581 and guided by professional engineers with significant experience in successfully executing RBI programs.
ALS expert services that support achieving successful outcomes from RBI programs include:
- Integrity engineering services to review asset inspection histories and create and optimise inspection and test plans (ITPs) using RBI processes.
- Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA and like concepts FMECA, FMESA) to make risk assessments of critical failure modes to which inspection programs can be focussed.
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This Friday, I'll venture off into the mountains with my mother-in-law, 2 sister-in-laws, and a grandmother-in-law for a fun filled weekend cottage getaway. I love them all very much and genuinely count them as friends.. we all (with the exception of 'grandma') enjoy libation and star gazing in hot tubs and smoking good weed over a nice mindless comedy. We get along very well. That said, in the spirit of honest, open, respectful communication, the "God Talk" comes up quite often. It always ends in an 'agree to disagree' sort of stalemate.. but the plot thickens. My daughter, Veda, is 4 years old and the fact that 'her granddaughter is being raised in a house with no faith' profoundly troubles my mother in law. I love her and it troubles ME that she loses sleep over Veda's mortal soul. I am, in every sense, a good mama and I'm raising my daughter to think for herself.. to ask questions.. to find what makes sense and to draw her own conclusions as to the existence of God (in any shape, form, fashion, or flavor of faith). I've even gone as far as to tell her that she cannot say, at 4, that she doesn't believe in Jesus. I've caught a lot of hell about this from fellow non theists.. but.. I refuse to let her be satisfied with any belief (or lack thereof) based on what I believe.. i digress... um.. oh yes.. this weekend will lend itself, no doubt, to a heated debate about the hellfire and damnation that eternity has in store for me.. and for Veda. I'm frankly over the whole damn thing. From the fact that my daughter, at 3, dubbed the bible fiction because there were no dinosaurs on the ark... to the fact that doctors and lawyers fly planes into fucking buildings because their God affords them absolute permission AS WELL AS the promise of paradise for having done so.. and that those believers are, in essence, better 'followers' than their christian counterparts.. because they OBEY, in full, their sacred texts.. and christians simply cherry pick from theirs.. etc and so forth. Question: Can anyone suggest specific biblical passages that contradict one another? Perhaps passages that demean women? (as my MIL is a vehemently outspoken feminist). I need fresh ammunition.. not to decimate her faith.. which would be cruel, I feel.. but, rather, to help her understand that my obstinance isn't unreasonable. Thanks for reading this far. Any help would be appreciated.
Views: 373
In my opinion the pick of the bunch of this:
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." 1 Timothy 2:11-12
Might not shut her up coming a from a woman but it's pretty clear that according to the bible, none of you should be discussing matters of faith (or anything other than kitchen skills and child-rearing). You should instead follow the wishes of your husbands and/or close male relatives.
..yes, sir.. Cook, clean, and manufacture babies. God is GOOD! pffft. Thank you for this verse.. I've written it down.. and will work with this one first. Thank you.
..well, im happy to report that i won the battle with a sister in law... and was taken aside, by the other, and told that (altho she cannot handle her mom knowing) i'd planted a seed of doubt in her head a long time ago.. that has finally come to fruition. :)


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This section presents projections of the numbers of persons receiving Federal SSI payments by category and age group.1 The SSI recipient categories of: (1) aged; or (2) blind or disabled identify the criteria under which the recipient established eligibility for SSI benefits. The following paragraphs discuss the recipient categories in more detail.
• Blind or disabled recipients establish their eligibility for SSI benefits by meeting the definition of blindness or disability and the applicable income and resource limits as well as any other SSI eligibility requirements. In December 2012, there were 7.1 million blind or disabled recipients of Federally-administered SSI payments. These recipients can fall into two subcategories based on age: blind or disabled adults (age 18 or older) and blind or disabled children (under age 18).
— Blind or disabled adults meet the definition of blindness or disability for individuals age 18 or older and SSI income and resource limits. Students age 18 to 21 must meet the adult definition of disability; they differ from other adults only in that they qualify for a special student earned income exclusion. When blind or disabled adult recipients reach age 65, we generally continue to classify them as blind or disabled adults (rather than aged). In December 2012, 5.8 million blind or disabled individuals age 18 or older received Federally-administered SSI payments, including 925 thousand disabled or blind recipients age 65 or older.
— Blind or disabled children meet the definition of blindness or disability for individuals under age 18. These children are subject to parent-to-child deeming until they reach the age of 18. At age 18 these individuals continue to be eligible for SSI if they meet the definition of blindness or disability for individuals age 18 or older as well as other eligibility criteria. We reclassify those who continue to be eligible after age 18 as blind or disabled adults. In December 2012, 1.3 million blind or disabled individuals under age 18 received Federally-administered SSI payments.Table IV.B1 presents historical and projected numbers of persons applying for SSI benefits by calendar year. Figure IV.B1 presents the same information as a graph. Following a 4-year period in the mid-2000s when applications remained fairly level at 2.1 million per year, applications started increasing in 2008, largely due to the severe economic recession that began at the end of 2007 and continued into 2009. The level of applications, which continued to increase through 2010, decreased only slightly in 2011 as the economy recovered slowly but decreased at a faster rate in 2012 as the economic recovery continued. We are projecting that applications will decline to 2.1 million in 2018 and remain at that lower level through 2022, reflecting the impact of individuals coming on the SSI rolls earlier due to the economic downturn, and then grow slightly, leveling off at about 2.2 million per year in 2024. This leveling off of the projected applications is a significant change from the projected applications in the 2012 SSI Annual Report where we estimated that applications would grow roughly in line with the overall population after a period of economic recovery.This change in the projected ultimate growth pattern of the applications is due to two improvements in our projection methodology designed to make the projections more consistent with the assumptions underlying the OASDI Trustees Report. First, we reduced application growth due to the expectation that the portion of the population that meets SSI income and resource requirements will decline over time as the CPI, and therefore the SSI Federal benefit rate, is projected to grow at a slower rate than average wages and income generally. Second, we further adjusted the growth in applications to reflect the slower growth projected for the portion of the Social Security area population composed of U.S. citizens or legal immigrants as compared to the overall population because SSI recipients must come from this portion of the population.
Table IV.B1.—SSI Federally-Administered Applications,a Calendar Years 1974‑2037
Based on data reported in the Integrated Workload Management System (formerly known as the District Office Workload Report).
"All" column estimated by the Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics using a 10-percent sample and published in the SSI Annual Statistical Report.
Note: Totals do not necessarily equal the sums of rounded components. We estimate the historical split among age groups on a calendar year of age basis.
Figure IV.B1.—SSI Federally-Administered Applications by Age Group, Calendar Years 1975‑2040 As part of SSA's adjudication of these applications, we evaluate levels of income and resources available to the applicants as well as other eligibility factors including marital and citizenship status and living arrangements. In addition, well over 90 percent of the SSI applications are for disability benefits that require the DDS to evaluate the alleged impairment. Applicants may appeal an unfavorable disability determination through several administrative levels of appeal. If an applicant exhausts all administrative levels of appeal, he or she may appeal to the Federal courts.3Table IV.B2 and figure IV.B2 present historical and projected numbers of persons who start receiving SSI payments as a result of this decision process. We count individuals as of the first month that they move into SSI payment status. For this reason, we refer to these individuals as "new recipients" rather than "awards."4 From 2004 to 2007, the numbers of new recipients remained fairly level, roughly consistent with the applications received during this period. Starting in 2008, however, the numbers of new recipients increased substantially. This increase is attributable to: (1) the sharp increase in applications due to the economic downturn; (2) improvements in claims processing; and (3) initiatives to accelerate the processing of cases pending adjudication.
Table IV.B2.—SSI Federally-Administered New Recipients, Calendar Years 1974‑2037 1974 c
Totals for 1974 include recipients converted from previous State programs as well as new recipients to the SSI program during 1974.
Note: Totals do not necessarily equal the sums of rounded components. We estimate the historical split among age groups on a calendar year of age basis.
Figure IV.B2.—SSI Federally-Administered New Recipients by Age Group, Calendar Years 1975‑2040 The numbers of new recipients declined slightly in 2011 and more sharply in 2012, similar to the change in applications. Consistent with the pattern of projected applications, we project the total number of new recipients to continue to decline from the peak in 2010 and then to reach a relative low point by 2020. Over the longer term, we project the number of new recipients to level off and remain essentially level throughout the projection period. These projected new recipients reflect the adjustments to the projected applications to make them more consistent with the assumptions underlying the OASDI Trustees Report.Some persons receiving SSI benefits in a year will stop receiving payments during the year because of death or the loss of SSI eligibility. A recipient can lose eligibility in two ways: (1) a nonmedical redetermination; or (2) a continuing disability review (CDR).5 In a redetermination, we reexamine the recipient's nonmedical factors of eligibility, including income and resources. In a CDR, we determine whether the recipient continues to meet the Social Security Act's definition of disability. For example, disabled children, upon attainment of age 18, lose eligibility if they do not qualify for benefits under the disabled adult eligibility criteria. We refer to the net reduction in the number of SSI recipients in current-payment status during a period as the number of SSI terminations for that period.In the following tables, we have separated the numbers of persons moving out of payment status into terminations due to death (table IV.B3), as well as terminations for all other reasons (table IV.B4). Table IV.B5 and figure IV.B3 present historical and projected numbers of total terminations by calendar year. The overall total number of terminations in 2012 decreased by about 2 percent from 2011. This decrease in the number of Federally-administered terminations is due in part to a decrease in the number of terminations for State recipients not receiving Federal benefits. In addition, some of the decrease is attributable to a decrease in the number of new SSI recipients concurrently eligible for OASDI disability benefits who received SSI benefits only temporarily during the 5-month SSDI waiting period due to the 2012 decrease in new recipients.
Table IV.B3.—SSI Federally-Administered Terminations Due to Deatha, Calendar Years 1974‑2037


text: Main Content Senate Bill 0348 (2011) rss? friendly link printer friendly Friendly Link: http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?2011-SB-0348 Public Act 142 of 2011 (Effective: 9/20/2011) Find this PA in the MCL Sponsor Roger Kahn (click name to see bills sponsored by that person) Categories Insurance: health; Insurance: insurers; State agencies (existing): treasury; Insurance; health; health insurance claims assessment act; create. Creates & repeals new act. TIE BAR WITH: SB 0347'11 Bill Documents Bill Document Formatting Information [x] The following bill formatting applies to the 2011-2012 session:- New language in an amendatory bill will be shown in BOLD AND UPPERCASE.- Language to be removed will be stricken.- Amendments made by the House will be blue with square brackets, such as: [House amended text].- Amendments made by the Senate will be red with double greater/lesser than symbols, such as: <<Senate amended text>>. (gray icons indicate that the action did not occur or that the document is not available) Documents Senate Introduced Bill Introduced bills appear as they were introduced and reflect no subsequent amendments or changes. As Passed by the Senate As Passed by the Senate is the bill, as introduced, that includes any adopted Senate amendments. As Passed by the House As Passed by the House is the bill, as received from the Senate, that includes any adopted House amendments. Senate Concurred Bill Concurred bill is the version passed in identical form by both houses of the Legislature, issued prior to availability of the Enrolled bill. Public Act Public Act is a bill that has become law. Legislative Service Bureau Compiler Notes Public Act 142 of 2011 with Editorial InformationThis document analyzes: SB 0348 Bill Analysis House Fiscal Agency Analysis Analysis as Reported From Committee (08-10-11)This document analyzes: SB0347, SB0348 Senate Fiscal Analysis FLOOR SUMMARY (Date Completed: 6-30-11)This document analyzes: SB0347, SB0348 SUMMARY AS PASSED BY THE SENATE (Date Completed: 6-30-11)This document analyzes: SB0347, SB0348 SUMMARY AS PASSED BY THE HOUSE (Date Completed: 8-24-11)This document analyzes: SB0348 SUMMARY AS ENACTED (Date Completed: 10-19-11)This document analyzes: SB0348 History (House actions in lowercase, Senate actions in UPPERCASE) Date JournalAction 4/27/2011SJ 34 Pg. 546REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 6/29/2011SJ 60 Pg. 1898DISCHARGE COMMITTEE APPROVED 6/29/2011SJ 60 Pg. 1898PLACED ON ORDER OF GENERAL ORDERS 6/29/2011SJ 60 Pg. 1901REPORTED BY COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE FAVORABLY WITH SUBSTITUTE S-3 6/29/2011SJ 60 Pg. 1901SUBSTITUTE S-3 CONCURRED IN 6/29/2011SJ 60 Pg. 1901PLACED ON ORDER OF THIRD READING WITH SUBSTITUTE S-3 6/29/2011SJ 60 Pg. 1901RULES SUSPENDED 6/29/2011SJ 60 Pg. 1901PLACED ON IMMEDIATE PASSAGE 6/30/2011SJ 61 Pg. 1912AMENDMENT(S) ADOPTED 6/30/2011SJ 61 Pg. 1912AMENDMENT(S) DEFEATED 6/30/2011SJ 61 Pg. 1912PASSED ROLL CALL # 391 YEAS 26 NAYS 9 EXCUSED 0 NOT VOTING 3 6/30/2011HJ 63 Pg. 2060received on 06/30/2011 6/30/2011HJ 63 Pg. 2063read a first time 6/30/2011HJ 63 Pg. 2063referred to Committee on Appropriations 8/24/2011HJ 65 Pg. 2093reported with recommendation with substitute H-1 8/24/2011HJ 65 Pg. 2093referred to second reading 8/24/2011HJ 65 Pg. 2100read a second time 8/24/2011HJ 65 Pg. 2100substitute H-1 not adopted 8/24/2011HJ 65 Pg. 2100substitute H-2 adopted 8/24/2011HJ 65 Pg. 2100placed on third reading 8/24/2011HJ 65 Pg. 2102placed on immediate passage 8/24/2011HJ 65 Pg. 2102read a third time 8/24/2011HJ 65 Pg. 2102passed; given immediate effect Roll Call # 310 Yeas 65 Nays 42 8/24/2011HJ 65 Pg. 2102returned to Senate 8/24/2011SJ 63 Pg. 2047HOUSE SUBSTITUTE H-2 CONCURRED IN 8/24/2011SJ 63 Pg. 2047 ROLL CALL # 465 YEAS 31 NAYS 7 EXCUSED 0 NOT VOTING 0 8/24/2011SJ 63 Pg. 2047GIVEN IMMEDIATE EFFECT 8/24/2011SJ 63 Pg. 2047ORDERED ENROLLED 9/14/2011SJ 67 Pg. 2098PRESENTED TO GOVERNOR 9/13/2011 @ 2:28 PM 9/21/2011SJ 70 Pg. 2149APPROVED BY GOVERNOR 9/20/2011 @ 3:15 PM 9/21/2011SJ 70 Pg. 2149FILED WITH SECRETARY OF STATE 9/20/2011 @ 4:26 PM 9/21/2011SJ 70 Pg. 2149ASSIGNED PA 0142'11 WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT


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From rock star engineers like Mark Lucovsky to whiz entrepreneurs like Dick Costolo, Google (GOOG) seems to lose a top tier employee every week.
Why are so many talented people fleeing such a successful company?
After speaking with a few of former Googlers, we can say it basically boils down to four reasons.
Google doesn't feel as entrepreneurial as it used to. It wasn't so long ago that Google was a startup and it took every employee's full resources to keep the thing thriving. Now Google is a company that knows what it's good at -- search advertising -- and is focused on making that business more efficient. For a lot of employees who joined Google at the beginning or through acquisitions -- among others, we're thinking of early Googler Tim Armstrong and former DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt here -- solving a big company's problems of efficiency is kind of boring.
There are only so many top spots at Google. Through its own recruiting and through the acquisition of hot startups, Google hires only the best -- lots and lots of "type-a" achievement-focused people. But there's only so many top jobs at any company. Talented people like Dick Costolo, the former CEO of FeedBurner, who came over when Google bought his company, sometimes have to leave to get a title that suits their ambitions. Dick is now Twitter's chief operating officer. He wasn't going to get that job at Google.
Other companies try really hard to hire Googlers, so they offer them lots of money and great titles. Former VP of ad sales Tim Armstrong had a great, comfortable gig at Google. But then Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes asked him to become CEO of AOL, and offered up to $50 million in stock options. He had to jump at it.
Google is a huge company now, so turnover could be very light percentage-wise, but it will still look like a lot of people are quitting. Once a tiny startup, Google now has almost 30,000 employees. The company with smallest turnover in Fortune's "100 best companies to work for" loses 2% of its employees every year. At Google, that would be almost 600 people a year -- about the same size as Facebook's entire headcount at the end of 2008.
Still, it's always shocking to hear that a company so successful and so famously pleasant to work for has lost top-tier employees like the following 17 that quit over the past few years:
- Kai-Fu Lee, President of Google Inc.'s China operations
- Michael Rubenstein, General Manager of Google Ad Exchange
- Dick Costolo, CEO of Google-acquired FeedBurner
- Mark Lucovsky, Engineering director
- Alexander Macgillivray, Deputy general counsel
- Jeff Levick, Vice president of sales
- Erin Clift, Director of agency relations
- Greg Badros, Senior Director of Engineering
- David Rosenblatt, President of display advertising
- Tim Armstrong, VP of ad sales
- Larry Brilliant, Director of Google.org
- Suhkinder Singh Cassidy, President for Asia-Pacific & Latin America operations
- Steve Horowitz, Engineering Director, Android
- Elliot Schrage, VP, global communications and public affairs
- Sheryl Sandberg, Vice president, Global Online Sales and Operations
- Gonzalo Alonso, Latin America director
- Doug Merrill, Chief information officer, VP of engineering


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Reconstructing Flight 507's final moments
Three jetliners sat ready for takeoff at Douala International Airport, their crews waiting for a massive thunderstorm to move away.
Just a few minutes past midnight, all three radioed air traffic control to check the weather report. They were told the storm would take another hour to dissipate, and the Cameroon Airlines and Royal Air Maroc crews opted to wait it out.
But Captain Francis Mbatia Wamwea of Kenya Airways Flight 507, already delayed for an hour and carrying scores of passengers with onward connections to catch, judged the weather had improved sufficiently to permit departure for Nairobi, Kenya.
It was a fateful decision that investigators believe may have cost the lives of the nine crew and 105 passengers of Flight 507, which was ensnared in the raging storm this past Saturday and crashed into the jungle less than a minute after takeoff.
After Wamwea gave the go-ahead, the Kenyan Airways crew radioed the tower, pulled away from the gate and taxied toward Runway 12, heading roughly south-west from the airport.
Douala tower cleared the flight for takeoff at 1am, instructing it to report on reaching 1 500 metres.
The pilot acknowledged. It was not clear what time that final voice transmission was received from the Boeing 737-800.
The plane nose-dived into a swamp just 30 seconds after becoming airborne, killing all aboard. The passengers included Cameroonian merchants, an American HIV and Aids expert, businesspeople from China, India and South Africa, a Tanzanian returning from peacekeeping duties in Ivory Coast, a UN refugee worker from Togo.
Anthony Mitchell, a Nairobi-based correspondent for The Associated Press, was among the victims.
The six-month old plane was of the newest generation of the world's most popular airliner and has an excellent safety record.
This is only the second time a 737-800 has crashed with the loss of all on board. Last September, an airliner belonging to Brazil's Gol airline collided in mid-air with an executive jet over the Amazon jungle.
One Cameroonian investigator and a government pilot assisting the probe, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wamwea's decision to depart into one of the violent tropical storms that regularly ravages parts of equatorial Africa during the rainy season was most likely the pivotal factor in a sequence of events that led to the crash in which all 114 aboard perished.
In Kenya on Friday, Kenya Airways chief executive Titus Naikuni said investigators would have to make the final assessment. The probe was likely to take months.
"We don't want to start speculating here," he said. "So whether the pilot did the wrong thing or the right thing, I cannot answer that."
Flight crews are responsible for the decision whether to take off or land in bad weather, usually depending on guidelines prescribed by their airline. And while air traffic control can take measures to prevent flights, including closing down airports, such drastic measures are highly unusual outside the northern hemisphere where heavy winter snows can block runways and bring traffic to a standstill.
Douala airport is not equipped with weather radar, but the 737-800 is. Pilots routinely take off into stormy weather and then rely on radar to guide them around the towering cumulonimbus thunderheads that can cause structural damage to airframes.
Wamwea, 53, was an experienced flyer with about 8 500 hours on jets. He had joined Kenya Airways 20 years ago and enjoyed the reputation of a diligent and professional pilot.
The co-pilot, Andrew Kiuru was only 23. He joined the airline a year ago after completing flight school in South Africa.
The cockpit voice recorder has not yet been found, so no details of the final exchanges between Wamwea and Kiuru are available. It remains unclear which man was flying the plane at the time, but Wamwea would have been the ultimate authority.
The flight data recorder has been recovered.
Two minutes after Flight 507 would have been expected to reach 5 000 feet, the point at which it had been instructed to check in, Douala Area Control Centre issued a distress message.
This is normal practice by air traffic control when unable to immediately establish contact with an aircraft, a fairly frequent occurrence. But controllers, who had lost sight of the plane fairly quickly because of the storm, were not unduly worried because the plane had fuel for six hours flying time.
A search was launched at 2.44am when a French radar station sent in a message that an airplane distress signal had been picked up. A Cameroonian air force plane and two helicopters first flew over a region far to the south, basing their search on the distress signal which was in fact hundreds of kilometres away from the actual crash.
It is unclear why the signal was so far off the mark, but it appears the plane's emergency locator beacon's final signal was garbled - indicating a false position.
And although the crash site is virtually directly beneath the flight path for planes taking off from Douala, nobody saw it because of the jungle canopy that covers the area.
The wreckage was found 40 hours after takeoff by a local hunter who chanced upon it in a mangrove swamp and reported it to the air force. It was located just 5,4 kilometres from Runway 12. Using speed calculations, experts estimate the plane had been in the air for just 30 seconds and had never climbed over 3 000 feet.
Commercial jets regularly fly over the area, one of several standard departure routes from Runway 12. Villagers living near the swamp said they heard planes passing overhead during the night, and a particularly loud boom which sounded like a thunderbolt.
Since there were no witnesses to the crash itself, investigators have pieced together the known facts and formulated several theories on what could have happened.
The wreckage in the thick jungle indicated the plane flew nose-first into the ground at a nearly 90 degree angle. It was found buried deep in a crater of reddish-brown muck with only tiny bits of the rear fuselage and wings left above ground. Trees nearby were smashed, but otherwise the jungle canopy remains intact, making the site almost invisible from the air.
Investigators said the nose-dive indicated that a violent gust of wind within a thundercloud may have flipped the airliner over, throwing it into a fatal dive. Although modern jets can usually fly through storm clouds, storms in Africa are particularly violent at this time of the year, investigators said.
The location of the wreckage also indicates the pilot was manoeuvring at the time, banking sharply to the right. This would have exposed the raised left wing to the gust, investigators said.
The low altitude, would have made it impossible to recover from the resulting dive.
Investigators said they cannot yet discount other factors, including mechanical failure, pilot disorientation or even sabotage. But no sign of a blast or fire has been found so far by the search teams, which include seven experts from the US National Transportation Safety Board and two Boeing representatives.
Investigators say it will likely take months to collect and analyse the evidence. They said a final report on the crash would probably not be completed this year. - Sapa-AP


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In a new study conducted by the North Carolina State University, researchers have found that pesticide exposure can affect the reproduction abilities of "water fleas", causing them to produce more male offspring and creating reproductive issues in females.
According to the North Carolina State University pesticide study, Daphnia, an aquatic species also referred to as "water fleas", is especially sensitive to environmental cues when determining sex in reproduction. The researchers discovered methyl farnesoate (Mf), a hormone the water fleas produce under certain environmental conditions, binds with a protein receptor and creates more male offspring than female.
"This work supports the hypothesis that exposure to some environmental chemicals during sensitive periods of development can cause significant health problems for those organisms later in life – and affect their offspring and, possibly, their offspring's offspring," says Dr. Gerald LeBlanc, a professor of environmental and molecular toxicology at NC State and lead author of a paper on the work. "We were looking at a model organism, identified an important pathway for environmental sex determination, and found that there are chemicals that can hijack that pathway."
During the study, researchers exposed the water fleas to different levels of insecticide that resulted in more male offspring and few offspring in total. At high concentrations of the insecticide, only male offspring were produced. At low concentrations, female offspring were produced, but they suffered from long-term reproductive health effects which caused them to have fewer offspring themselves.


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From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Gary Harmon):
Work will resume next week on the cleanup of millions of tons of uranium mill tailings from Moab, Utah, after the project was stalled for the winter. In all, 27 employees of the contractor to the U.S. Energy Department will return to work Monday, and operations are to resume March 7, after employees receive refresher training and a review of procedures. Returning employees had chosen to be laid off for the winter and all are coming back to their old jobs, the Energy Department said.
Employees who worked through the winter installed permanent liners in the containers used to transport the tailings from Moab north 30 miles to Crescent Junction by rail. The liners are intended to prevent tailings from sticking to the sides of the containers and their use will ultimately increase efficiency, said Don Metzler, who directs the project for the Energy Department. Previously, employees had placed single-use liners in the containers.
"The sustained below-freezing temperatures this winter made the container-lining project an even more difficult task than already anticipated," Metzler said. "But, as usual, the workforce didn't let the cold
weather keep them from getting the job done." In all, 40 employees worked through the winter.
The cleanup will result in the transfer of 16 million tons of mill tailings from a pile near Moab to Crescent Junction. The project is to be complete by 2025.


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SharePoint 2007 and Windows WorkFlow Foundation: Integrating Divergent Worlds
Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 2007 is the first Microsoft server that has native support for the Windows WorkFlow Foundation (WF). The integration of WF and the 2007 release of SharePoint provides an infrastructure that drives processes around SharePoint's strong suit: collaboration and sharing of information. This release focuses on document-centric workflows, the procedures that a particular document goes through in its lifecycle (be they reviewing, editing, or approval). The new edition enables you to attach and run a process directly in a SharePoint document or list item. Additionally, the workflows within SharePoint spotlight human-based endeavors, tasks driven by human interaction as opposed to static, automated programmatic steps.
To examine the process, this article follows a report that needs to be approved before publication:
- A document containing a report can automatically generate an Approval workflow, or the author can initialize it manually and select the individuals who need to approve it.
- The workflow assigns approval tasks to those people and they are notified of their tasks via email.
- They can assign their choice by clicking "approve" or "reject" on a special form provided by the workflow.
- When all approvals are completed, the author receives notification that the report has been approved (or rejected) and it is ready for publication.
The Basics
SharePoint Server 2007 provides various out-of-the-box workflows that require no additional attention before using. These workflows include Approval (routes a document for approval), Collect Feedback (routes a document for review), Collect Signatures (gathers signatures), Disposition Approval (manages document expiration and retention), Group Approval (similar to the Approval workflow, but designed specifically for East Asian markets), Translation Management (manages document translation), and Issue Tracking (manages the issue tracking process by creating tasks for active issues assigned to users).
Many processes are very specific to an individual company's needs. Therefore, the WorkFlow Foundation provides an extensible infrastructure that can be used to create sophisticated workflows. WF provides a powerful platform with a unified programming model, and it works with familiar developmental tools such as Visual Studio 2005. Less powerful SharePoint workflows also can be created with SharePoint Designer (formally FrontPage), a web design and customization tool that allows users to create workflows without writing any code.
Using the Right Tools
A standard Visual Studio installation lacks the necessary tools to work with the WorkFlow Foundation, so to put things in motion you must install the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation). The extensions provide the required references to the Foundation assemblies, the essential Activities needed, as well as the WorkFlow designer within Visual Studio and a number of project templates. Keep in mind that you must install DotNet Framework 3.0 as a prerequisite to working with WF.
A Visual Studio 2005 extension that is compatible with the WorkFlow Foundation to work with SharePoint is available, but at the time of writing it was in beta (Workflow Developer Starter Kit for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0). Note that this extension is not required if you are developing workflows for SharePoint (the extension makes a new template to initialize a project).
The first step in creating a workflow for SharePoint is crafting a new project in Visual Studio 2005 based in the Sequential Workflow Library (or in the State Machine Workflow Library, if you are making a state machine workflow) and assigning it a name. Visual Studio will generate the necessary code and configuration files. Add a reference to Windows SharePoint Services (Microsoft.SharePoint.dll) and, if you need to work with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, a reference to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server component (microsoft.sharepoint.portal.dll). This establishes references to the object model of SharePoint, opening the door to interactions with it.
Although it's not compulsory, it simplifies coding if you write directives to the next namespaces in the code behind file, for example:
using Microsoft.SharePoint; using Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow; using Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowActions;
Finally, you need to add an activity to the Visual Studio toolbox. Using the context menu (right-click into the toolbox), select Choose items and in the .NET Framework Components tab, check the OnWorkflowActivated activity to activate it in the toolbox. This activity is indispensable for running workflows in SharePoint.
As a demonstration, the following example builds a simple workflow that illustrates the lifecycle of a WF within SharePoint: initializing the workflow, transporting information from SharePoint, processing it, and feeding it back to WSS (see Figure 1).
Click here for a larger image.
Figure 1. The Example WorkFlow in the Visual Studio WorkFlow DesignerYou initialize the process by creating the workflow using the WorkFlow Designer in Visual Studio. The opening activity is always the OnWorkflowActivated for workflows in SharePoint. Next, install a While activity with a Code Activity inside to process the information. Finally, install another Code Activity to return information to SharePoint. Bear in mind that this is not a functional workflow you would use in a business application, but a demonstration of each part of the interaction between WF and SharePoint.
Extracting Information from the External World: SharePoint to the WorkFlow
The first stage in the codification of the workflow involves defining some variables in the code behind page to be used later, for example:
public SPWorkflowActivationProperties FlowProperties = new SPWorkflowActivationProperties(); private string _myDocument = string.Empty; private int _CounterLetters = 0; private int _CounterVowels = 0;
The activation properties will be stored in the FlowProperties variable, and extra global variables for the internal work are defined.
As Figure 1 shows, each activity has a red mark at the right corner, indicating that the configuration is incomplete. Returning to the Designer, you now can configure the OnWorkflowActivated activity using the defined variables (see Figure 2).
Click here for a larger image.
Figure 2. Configuration Panel of the OnWorkflowActivated ActivityIn the Properties panel, create the subsequent configurations:
- Correlation Token: Choose a distinctive name (FlowToken, for example). After the name configuration, a plus symbol will appear where the OwnerActivityName can be selected (Workflow1 in the example).
- Click the ellipses button of WorkFlowProperties and, in the new window, choose the code defined previously in FlowProperties.
If the configuration parameters are correct, the red mark in the activity will disappear.
As with all Visual Studio projects, if you double-click on an activity, Visual Studio will fashion the corresponding event handler. When you double-click the OnWorkflowActivated activity, Visual Studio writes the event handler method automatically and the user writes the corresponding logic inside:
private void onWorkflowActivated1_Invoked(object sender, ExternalDataEventArgs e) { SPListItem myActivator = FlowProperties.Item; _myDocument = myActivator.Name.ToLower(); _CounterLetters = _myDocument.Length; }
By using this activity, you can find all the relevant information from the SharePoint context. The flow is initialized by an element of a List (of the SharePoint type SPListITem), and from the object that contains the element information, you can find its name (located in the variable _myDocument) and the number of letters in the document name (stored in the _CounterLetters variable).
In the FlowProperties object, you can find all the necessary information from the SharePoint context. The SharePoint web, site, and list objects are present, as well as the Task List that generates alerts for other users. Everything you need to process the variable later is present.
Processing the Information: the WorkFlow in Action
Once the information from SharePoint has been captured, the next step is to process it. With a double-click on the activity inside the While loop, Visual Studio generates the corresponding event handler, where you can write the business logic:
private void codeActivity1_ExecuteCode(object sender, EventArgs e) { _CounterLetters--; char[] AllVowels = new char[] { 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u' }; Array.Sort(AllVowels); if (Array.BinarySearch(AllVowels, _myDocument[_CounterLetters]) >= 0) _CounterVowels++; }
The procedure for the example will count the number of vowels in the name of the document. The algorithm is not optimal for a large number of instances of the workflow, but sufficient for the example (the method IndexOf of the array may be a more effective way to calculate the number of vowels).
At this point, it is important to construct the configuration of the While activity. From the Properties panel, compose the following configurations:
- Condition: Choose "Declarative Rule Condition."
- ConditionName (expanding the Condition property): Give it a recognizable name.
- Expression: In the "Rule Condition Editor," which can be activated by using the ellipses button, write the condition necessary to remain in the loop (for the example, "this._CounterLetters > 0"). Until all the letters are "read" and the vowels are counted, the loop statement will continue.
This step is essential to the overall workflow because it implements the flow's logic. The example uses only one code activity inside a loop activity, but in an actual situation it would be composed of many different kinds of activities.
Taking Information Back to the External World: From the WorkFlow to SharePoint
The second Code activity in the example controls returning the processed information from the WorkFlow engine to the SharePoint context. You can use the event handler of the activity to write information back into SharePoint as follows:
private void codeActivity2_ExecuteCode(object sender, EventArgs e) { SPListItem myActivator = FlowProperties.Item; myActivator["Title"] = _myDocument + " has " + _CounterVowels.ToString() + " vowels"; myActivator.Update(); }
Initially, the code crafts an object of the type Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListItem, calling the Item method of the SharePoint properties, and then changes the title of the element that has begun the WorkFlow, appending a string and the calculated number of vowels in the name of the document.
Because the workflow has access to the complete context of SharePoint, it can perform internally any authorized modification (write to lists and libraries, change properties, as well as create, edit, and delete elements). Everything, that is, within the authorization and authentication context of the user who has initialized the WorkFlow.
An additional method of interaction with users is to employ ASP.NET forms that you apply with your Windows SharePoint Services workflow. You then display these forms in the SharePoint user interface at the appropriate stages in the workflow. There can be four types of forms:
- Association: This form will be displayed to administrators when they first add or associate the WorkFlow with a particular List or document Library.
- Initialization: A user starting the WorkFlow manually will be confronted with this form. At this point, the user may override or append the association parameters.
- Modification: The form that enables users to alter the WorkFlow while it is running.
- Task: This form assigns jobs to the flow participants.
Page 1 of 2
This article was originally published on January 8, 2007


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#RSL Tweets of the Day (@RealSaltLake)
Full recap from
#RSL's 2-2 Desert Diamond Cup draw against New York: //www.realsaltlake.com/news/2013/02/preseason-recap-rsl-2-2-new-york-red-bulls …
Jake @SLTID_Jake
So, my initial thought is that these kids WANT THIS GAME. They are hungry. They have something to prove. This will be a good thing.
My ReAL Opinion @My_ReAL_Opinion
Is it March 3rd yet? These preseason games are getting me excited!
#RSL played an ok game. Wasn't perfect, but slowly we're coming together!
I like what I am seeing from Plata ... looks dangerous on and off the ball. Making some great runs.
ESPN 700: Garth Lagerwey on "The Bill and Hans Show"
MLSsoccer.com: March to the Match Podcast: Why Chelis might be a genius; Lampard or Kaka?
Real Salt Lake News & Notes
RealSaltLake.com: Preseason Recap: RSL 2-2 New York Red Bulls
RealSaltLake.com: RSL face off against Olave, Espindola on Wednesday night
MLSsoccer.com: Desert Diamond Cup: Sounders roll while RSL, NY draw
MLSsoccer.com: For Findley, good times are here again with return to RSL
MLSsoccer.com: 17 Days 'til MLS: Can Sabo make Salt Lake go?
Salt Lake Tribune; Real Salt Lake newcomers score in 2-2 preseason draw
Pro Soccer Talk: Building preseason knowledge: New York Red Bulls vs. Real Salt Lake
NASN.tv: ESPN 700's On Frame joins NASN
For the Fans, By the Fans
RSL Soapbox: RSL score early, lose lead in 2-2 draw with NYRB in Desert Diamond Cup
RSL Soapbox: Opportunity, nervousness add up for potential Saunders signing
Real Nation: Preseason Match with NYRB: What we learned
MLS, Other News & Notes
MLSsoccer.com: Impact reach into bag of tricks to keep defenses guessing
MLSsoccer.com: FCD's John finally at full speed, on track for opening day
MLSsoccer.com: Arena guarded as Galaxy evaluate two Brazilian trialists
MLSsoccer.com: No surprises this time: SJ stick to winning formula in '13
MLSsoccer.com: Commentary: How was Gus Johnson in Fox Soccer debut?
MLSsoccer.com: Ramos adds Rapids Homegrown Serna to US U-20 roster
MLSsoccer.com: Postcard from Europe: Jozy leading historic year for Yanks
MLSsoccer.com: Dynamo's Ashe eyes season opener after knee surgery
MLSsoccer.com: Rapids expect recovering Buddle to be ready for opener
Pro Soccer Talk: No goal line technology for Major League Soccer in 2013
Pro Soccer Talk: Building preseason knowledge: Seattle Sounders vs. New England Revolution
Soccer By Ives: Crew, Impact post their second wins of the Disney Pro Soccer Classic
Sporting News: San Jose Earthquakes contracts: Corrales back as player-coach; Fucito signs


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Enter Hardtied Now!
Jade Volunteers For Electricity
Jade Indica volunteered for some electrical play with Claire Adams. All she thought it would involve was a few stim pads or a violet wand. When Claire decided to push a little shocker right up inside of her tight little ass the first few pops were quite a surprise. Once Jade adapted she was begging for more jolts to help her enjoy her orgasms. Well... until Claire decides she enjoys it too much....
Read More
18 U.S.C. 2257 Compliance Statement


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#TaxReformNow: The 97.5% must back Angara, Quimbo
SINGAPORE—Lowering income tax rates will not benefit us, President Aquino pronounced last Sept. 14. This curt dismissal is short-sighted, unstatesmanlike and implies a refusal to discuss the more difficult issues that underlie #TaxReformNow. If a religious group that makes up 2.5 percent of our population can readily occupy Edsa to air its grievances, it is about time we the 97.5 percent demanded #TaxReformNow.
Mr. Aquino's dismissal is a slap on the faces of Sen. Sonny Angara and Rep. Miro Quimbo, who put #TaxReformNow on the national agenda as chairs of the Senate and the House of Representatives' committees on ways and means. Indeed, the "presidentiables"—Vice President Jejomar Binay, Sen. Grace Poe and Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte—have all voiced support for it.
Angara's infographic campaigns frame how simple yet compelling #TaxReformNow is. We have the second highest maximum income tax rate in Southeast Asia at 32 percent. Thailand and Vietnam impose 35 percent, while Singapore, Cambodia and Burma (Myanmar) impose 20 percent.
However, #TaxReformNow examines the income brackets that determine one's tax rate, not just the maximum rate. In the Philippines, one hits 32 percent at P500,000, which is any middle-class employee who has been promoted a few times. The P500,000 threshold was set in 1997, when the tax code was enacted. As Angara and Quimbo argue, P500,000 might buy a new house then, but it cannot even buy a new car today. In contrast, Thailand, despite its higher maximum rate, taxes a P500,000 income at only 10 percent, and Singapore, 2 percent. The Philippines taxes a P250,000 income at 25 percent, Thailand still 10 percent, and Singapore exempts this.
We must reform "bracket creep." Middle-class employees are taxed at the same rate as billionaires, who effectively pay lower taxes because they earn from dividends instead of salaries. At the very least, brackets must be pegged to inflation instead of permanently latched to the 1997 economy.
Mr. Aquino's simplistic response was that lowering income tax rates will lower government revenue, and one would have to increase other taxes such as value-added taxes. To rebut this, first, Angara and Quimbo do not argue in a vacuum. We are treated less equitably compared to our Southeast Asian neighbors. To borrow the Bureau of Internal Revenue's favorite example, a public school teacher earning a mere P16,500 a month would already be in the high 25-percent bracket, yet taxed at 10 percent in Thailand and exempt in Singapore.
Ignoring #TaxReformNow will leave us less competitive as Southeast Asia integrates. A Philippine professional would happily work in Cambodia to earn more simply by paying lower taxes. An overseas Filipino worker in Singapore must think long and hard before coming home. Not only would his income be slashed by two-thirds, an OFW professional earning at least P1.4 million a year there would move from 7 percent to 32 percent—a 357-percent increase!
Second, the numbers in the tax rates and brackets do not tell the whole story. Eighty-five percent of BIR collection from individual taxpayers come from salaried employees, whose taxes are readily withheld from employers' payrolls. The remaining 15 percent represent self-employed, business-owner and professional taxpayers whose incomes are not as transparent and claim various deductions. Budget Secretary Butch Abad noted that this 15 percent collectively underpays income taxes by almost P400 billion a year. On the other hand, Prof. Stella Quimbo, the pro bono consultant Miro could not afford to pay if she charged, has found that 73 percent of salaried employees are minimum-wage earners and tax-exempt. She computed that the BIR's collection from salaried employees is really paid by only 16 percent of these 22 million employees, which in turn represents 85 percent of taxes from individual taxpayers.
Third, given how starkly inequitable our system is to middle-class employees, it is imperative to broadly reform budgeting and tax collection. Nonsalaried individuals must be encouraged to share the tax burden beyond the BIR's antagonistic shame campaigns. Angara's infographics argue that we lose P230 billion a year from agricultural-product smuggling, P30 billion from oil smuggling and P12 billion from tobacco smuggling. Angara further argues that P800 billion of the 2014 national budget was not spent as planned, so there is room for tax reform. Finally, there are blatant anomalies in tax implementation, and my recent column decrying the blatantly illegal customs duties on books ("Why no one trusts customs," 8/31/15) elicited no response.
Ultimately, lowering tax rates will let our consumers spend more, and the government will recoup some of the short-term loss in revenue through consumption taxes such as VAT without necessarily raising them. Increased economic activity will hopefully lead to long-term increases in tax revenue.
#TaxReformNow presents an incredibly simple issue that greatly affects broad segments of citizens. Further, Angara and Quimbo are among our most credentialed young reformists, being The Outstanding Young Men awardees and star University of the Philippines law graduates (Angara holds a Harvard Law degree to boot). Nevertheless, #TaxReformNow is dismissed by a president who drops everything to call a marathon Cabinet meeting to address the protest of the 2.5 percent.
If the 97.5 percent political minority want fresh, concrete, intelligent reforms championed by lawmakers with spectacular credentials, then they must immediately push their congressmen to back Angara and Quimbo. If not, we should not complain the next time the 2.5 percent block Edsa and the national agenda is dictated by narrower interests and traditional politicians.
* * *
React: [email protected], Twitter @oscarfbtan, facebook.com/OscarFranklinTan.
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Shanghai: Director-General promotes skills for work and life
Some 40 ministers and participants from over 100 countries will participate in the Third International Congress on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), that opens on 14 May in Shanghai, in the presence of UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova.
"Too few young people and adults are gaining the skills, knowledge and attitudes they need to find decent employment in today's rapidly changing job market, where the capacity to learn and adapt is essential. This is a top political concern everywhere and it calls for concerted policies," states Irina Bokova in the Congress program. The Congress will make proposals to transform and expand TVET around the world.
In Shanghai, Irina Bokova will also sign an agreement on the establishment of an International Research and Training Center for Science and Technology Strategy (Category 2). She will visit World Heritage Sites in Suzhou, where the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research is based, and Hangzhou, where she will give the Mayor a certificate nominating it as a UNESCO City of Crafts and Folk Art.
On the higher education circuit, she will receive the title of Honorary Professor from Tongji University in Shanghai and meet with officials at Hainan University, where she is Honorary Chairperson of the University Council.
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