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Return to FLAMINGOS Home Page
FLAMINGOS, the Florida Multi-object Imaging Near-IR Grism Observational Spectrometer, has been in use at Kitt Peak since 2001.
The information on this web page is intended primarily for scheduled users and those interested in proposing to use the instrument. The information will be updated as needed to reflect the most recent status of the instrument. This information is current as of November 2010.
In the past, FLAMINGOS has been shared between Kitt Peak, the MMT and Gemini South, but it is presently scheduled only at Kitt Peak, although there may be occasional periods when it is out of service for maintenance or upgrades. The full suite of instrument capabilities is being offered, as described below, but prospective long-slit or MOS users should read the caveats in the spectroscopy section.
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR PROPOSERS: In order to make it easier to schedule and support the MOS mode, any programs that will use multislit mode should identify the instrument as FLMNM in the proposal. Requests for imaging or long-slit mode (or both) should identify the instrument as FLMN.
FLAMINGOS is a wide-field IR imager and multi-slit spectrometer designed and built by Richard Elston at the University of Florida, with some collaboration and support from NOAO. The imaging mode is provided by a fairly conventional optical train, consisting of a refractive collimator, filters, cold stop and a camera, which images the focal plane onto a 2K x 2K HgCdTe detector.The detector characteristics are summarized in the following table:
Table 1: Detector Characteristics
|Wavelength Response
|0.9 - 2.5 microns
|Bias Voltage (v)
|Full Well (ADU)
|~ 50000
|~ 38000
|Typical Signal (ADU)
|~ 25000 - 30000
|~ 15000 - 20000
|CDS Read Noise (e)
|Gain (e/ADU)
The instrument can be used on both the 2.1-m and 4-m telescopes; pixel scale and useful field of view values for each telescope are summarized below:
Table 2: FLAMINGOS Imaging Parameters
|Scale (arcsec/pixel)
|Field of View (arcmin)
|10 x 10
|20 x 20
The filters available for imaging are J, H, K and Ks. The filters are located in a collimated beam, but with large field angles, so that narrowband filters will not work very well over the full field, and there are no current plans to provide any.
The cold stops are on the Lyot wheel, so that an optimized cold stop is available for each telescope.
The image quality of the optics (as designed and toleranced) is well-matched to typical image quality on the 4-m, and is about 2 pixels FHWM over most of the field (a little worse at the corners and at the very left-hand side of the array). This does mean that imaging on the 2.1-m will mostly not be seeing-limited, particularly at the corners, where field curvature becomes significant.
The spectroscopic mode is provided by a cold slit mask placed at the telescope focal plane, which is in front of the camera dewar, and by a grism placed after the cold stop. The slit masks are mounted in a wheel in a separate MOS dewar in front of the camera section at the telescope focal plane. The MOS dewar can be warmed up and cooled down quickly, allowing the masks to be changed during the day. The MOS wheel can accommodate 11 slit masks (enough for 2 - 3 nights of typical observing), in addition to permanently-mounted long slits. The unvignetted width of a slit mask mounted in its frame is roughly 1/3 of the imaging field (i.e., about 3.1 x 9.5 arcmin on the 4-m). A second wheel contains deckers, which restrict the field of view as appropriate for imaging, long-slit spectra, and multi-slit spectra.
At present, there are two grisms covering the JH and HK atmospheric windows which provide two-pixel R ~ 1000 - 1800, depending on the wavelength and filter/grism combination. At this resolution, one obtains full spectral coverage even for off-center slit locations at the edges of the slit masks for HK spectroscopy, but there will be some spectral vignetting for JH spectroscopy for slit locations at the edges of the masks. The Grism wheel also has an open position for use when imaging and a cold blocker. The second open position is for a higher resolution grism which was never installed. The "true-dark" position of the Grism wheel provides the only cold dark slide in the instrument and should be used for all Dark observations.
The positions of the Decker, Filter, Lyot, and Grism wheels are given in Table 3.
|9000 steps
|1250 steps
|1250 steps
|1250 steps
The instrument will run into the fork of the 2-m telescope at declinations north of +80°. There is no hour angle limit, (although the instrument doesn't clear the control room roof by much). Anyone who needs to observe fields north of +78° must propose to use the 4-m telescope.
Measured values for imaging performance are given in the tables below. Prospective users need to remember that near-infrared background can vary by a factor of three or more; for the K and Ks filters, where the background is mainly thermal emission, it is correlated with temperature and therefore quite seasonal. At J and H the background is primarily OH airglow and levels are unpredictable. A detailed discussion of background variation provided in the SQIID manual is equally applicable to FLAMINGOS.
The performance values for the 2.1-m and 4-m telescopes are based on actual data, although from a limited number of nights and at different times of the year, so they are not exactly self-consistent. The 4-m performance numbers are nominally the same as those for ISPI at the CTIO Blanco 4-m.The observed performance from the extensive GOODS survey at J and Ks agree to within 0.1 - 0.2 mag.
NOTE:The upper right quadrant of the array has a higher read noise than the other three quadrants. This can also be seen on dark images as an apparent periodic pattern. Extensive work during the summer of 2003 on the MCE-4 controller did result in improved performance, except in this quadrant, and the cause remains unknown. This should not seriously affect imaging applications, since the limiting noise is determined by the sky background, but it could have some effect on lower-background spectroscopy. For single-object longslit spectroscopy, one may wish to keep the spectra on the lower two quadrants.
One should estimate the imaging performance on the KPNO 4-m telescope using the ISPI Exposure Time Calculator, since the performance of the two instruments is virtually identical. The IRAF Exposure Time Calculator, which uses the IRAF task ccdtime, may be used to estimate the performance of FLAMINGOS on the 2.1-m telescope; this will also work for the 4-m, but for consistency, we recommend that the ISPI performance be used.The ccdtime task assumes that the effective aperture is 1.4 times the seeing, so to duplicate the performance given in the 2.1-m table below, a seeing of 2.1 arcsec must be used. Different values for the assumed seeing will, of course, result in different results for the predicted performance.
Table 4: Predicted FLAMINGOS Performance on KPNO 4-m
FWHM = 3 pixels; aperture = 2.2 arcsec
60 sec
600 sec
3600 sec
Table 5: Predicted FLAMINGOS Performance on KPNO 2.1-m
FWHM = 2 pixels; aperture = 2.8 arcsec
60 sec
600 sec
3600 sec
The instrument gain is approximately 4.9 electrons/ADU for imaging (bias = 1.0 v).
The sensitivity values are based on aperture photometry for the diameters listed above the tables. Sensitivity will scale with aperture size, since most of the photons in an aperture will be due to sky.
Note that the exposure times do not include overheads associated with writing data to disk, moving the telescope between dithers, acquiring the field, etc. For short exposures, overhead will significantly reduce efficiency. The instrument overhead is quite short (less than 10 seconds) to read out the array and write the data to disk, so for most observing programs the time between images is determined by telescope overheads involved in dithering or rastering. For short offsets, the offset and settling times combined should be around 10 seconds.
The detector full well is sufficiently large that maximum exposure times at K are around 30 seconds (at least in the winter), 45 seconds at Ks and a minute or more at J and H. As noted above, the overhead in writing to disk is modest.
Although the minimum legal exposure time is under 2 seconds, in practice the instrument cannot keep up with exposure sequences for times that short, and a minimum practical time is around 5 seconds. Users should also be aware that even at longer exposure times, a small fraction of the images in any sequence may be lost, and should plan so that loss of a single frame does not seriously compromise their program. (This is a good rule for IR imaging in general).
One may use the numbers in Tables 4 and 5 to make an estimate of the sensitivity for observations of extended sources. Since the pixel area at the 4-m is almost exactly 0.1 arcsec2, one may easily convert the point source sensitivity values into surface brightness equivalents. Table 6 presents the results using the 4-m values from Table 4, assuming that the individual integration times are sufficiently long that one is background limited. Table 6 presents both the maximum integration time, based on keeping the maximum signal/pixel below 20000 ADU, and a more typical rounded value. As long as one is background limited, the results for 3600 s of on-source time should not depend on the individual frame time, except for the observing overheads.
Table 6: Predicted FLAMINGOS Performance on KPNO 4-m for Extended Sources
Maximum Frame Time
Typical Frame Time
Because this is a surface brightness estimate, the values for the 2.1-m telescope should be similar. Several caveats must be considered in the estimate presented here. First, this estimate is for 3600s of on-source time and does not include the overheads associated with each integration; for the short 30 sec K band observations, the integration overhead and telescope dither motions can add at least 50% to the on-source time. Secondly, this estimate assumes that the source is sufficiently compact to fit well within the FLAMINGOS field of view so that sky information may be obtained from the observations. Separate off-source sky observations will naturally add additional time to the observation. Finally, this assumes no systematic effects such as errors introduced by sky subtraction and flatfielding. For a long deep integration where the source is significantly smaller than the array size, one can generate both a master sky frame and a sky flatfield from the data itself. Both sky subtraction and flatfielding will add some noise to the data, although the degree is difficult to estimate. A sky or flat generated from nine images will have a statistical noise of 1/3 that of the source images and would therefore add about 10% to the noise. But the major source of systematics for this type of observation may come from the fact that the sky level is not constant. The OH airglow which accounts for the majority of the J and H background is temporally and spatially variable, so sky subtraction will in general leave a residual which will may or may not flatfield to a constant level. Observations in the K bands under unusually warm conditions will increase the sky background above the levels listed here and will impact the performance due to both increased noise from the background and increased overhead from the shorter integration times required.
The linearity correction (courtesy of Anthony Gonzalez at UF) for the imaging mode can be expressed as a third-order polynomial:
y = 1.00425 * x - 1.01413 * 10-6 * x2 + 4.18096 * 10-11 * x3
where x is the raw signal and y is the linearity corrected signal in ADU.For the IRAF irlincor task, the coefficients are:
a = 1.00425, b = -0.03323, c = 0.04489
FLAMINGOS presently contains two grisms, one optimized for the JH bands and the other for HK, with a resolution (2 pixels) of approximately 1300 for both at the middle of the wavelength band. Blocking filters for JH (0.9 - 1.8 microns) and HK (1.25 - 2.5 microns) provide coverage of the combined bands with the appropriate grism. As shown in the table below, the JH spectrum covers almost all of the array, so there will be some spectral loss for MOS slitlets which are offset near the edges of the masks. This is not the case for the HK spectra, which cover significantly less than the full width of the array.
The designations "left" and "right" in Table 7 refer to the orientation in the ds9 display with WCS not enabled; i.e.; positive X is to the right and positive Y is up on the display. In this orientation, the position angle of the mask and instrument rotator is down, and the projection is in earth parity, with east clockwise from north. Thus, a mask with PA=90 will have east down and north to the right on the display. In this orientation, a slit to the right side will result in a spectrum shifted to longer wavelengths, so the coverage on the array will be shifted to shorter wavelengths.
Table 7: Approximate Spectroscopic Format
|Pixel 1 (A)
|Pixel 2048 (A)
|Δλ/pixel (A)
|JH left
|HK left
|JH right
|HK right
For spectroscopy, one uses a different bias (0.75 v) than for imaging, and the conversion gain is slightly different (4.1 e/ADU).
At the 4-m, the instrument rotator may be used to rotate the position angle of the slit between 0 and 180 degrees. At the 2.1-m, the slit orientation is fixed N-S.
Performance is more difficult to characterize for spectroscopy than for imaging, since both the signal and sky background have spectral structure, so that "sensitivity" is a strong function of the particular wavelength of interest, especially at resolutions around 1000. An illustration of the sky background in the JH spectroscopy mode is shown below in Figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1: A selected subregion of the FLAMINGOS array (2048 x 190) showing the night sky spectrum in JH spectroscopy mode with a 4-pixel slit. The integration time is 600 s. Wavelength increases from left to right.
Figure 2: Plot of the JH sky spectrum from Fig. 1, showing the atmospheric OH emission lines. Signal is ADU (NREADS=1) in 600 s. Ordinate is in pixels.
The FLAMINGOS signals for JH and HK spectroscopy are illustrated in Figure 3. These were obtained on the Kitt Peak 4-m through a wide (10 arcsec) box, so that slit losses are not a factor. The signals are raw (no flatfielding) levels normalized to a 0.0 magnitude star in 1 sec with NREADS=1, at the spectroscopy detector bias of 0.75 v.
Figure 3: Raw FLAMINGOS signal levels in ADU/s for a 0.0 mag star through a wide slit for the JH region (left panel) and HK region (right panel). The signal in the HK spectrum redward of 2.5 microns is second order H band signal.
Ideally, the performance of a spectrograph is limited by the sky background, which consists primarily of emission lines from OH in the upper atmosphere in the J, H, and short K bands (Figure 1) and thermal continuum which increases sharply beginning at approximately 2.2 microns. The division of FLAMINGOS into separate MOS and camera dewars requires a vacuum-tight transparent interface between the two to permit bringing the MOS dewar up to atmospheric pressure for mask changes; this is the BaF2 field lens which also serves as the camera dewar window. The presence of a warm optical element behind the slit plane results in significant additional thermal background which is dispersed by the grism onto the detector and limits the performance of the instrument for spectroscopy.This is particularly significant for HK spectroscopy, where the dispersed thermal background completely dominates the spectral image (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Raw image of a MOS spectrum in HK mode, showing the substantial dispersed thermal background superposed on the spectra of the MOS slitlets. The higher background spectra at the top and bottom are from the four square acquisition boxes on the MOS mask.
The background near the lower center of the array [1200:1225,605:630] was measured for various combinations of grism and blocking filter; the results are displayed below. As expected, the background with the HK grism correlates with the long wavelength cutoff of the blocking filter. In addition, the imaging filters (J, H, K, Ks) are of excellent quality and have higher throughput than the spectroscopic JH and HK blocking filters. Therefore, observers who have scientific interest only in the K band (or a portion thereof), should consider using either the K or Ks filter as a blocker with the HK grism to take advantage of both higher signals and lower background. A somewhat surprising result is that the background through the JH blocker is significantly higher than with the H filter when used with the JH grism; this is probably a result of the slightly longer wavelength JH cutoff (see filter plot links at the end of this page). This background (~ 4 e/s) is sufficient to degrade the predicted performance between OH lines by almost one magnitude.
Table 8: Background (ADU/s; 1 LNR; 0.75v bias) in Different Spectroscopic Modes
Approximate spectroscopic sensitivities based on the observed signal and background levels are summarized below. These were estimated using a slit throughput of 0.5, which is typical for a 2 or 3 pixel slit at the 4-m under nominal seeing conditions. The JH background is fairly uniform across the array and, as noted above, limits the performance between the OH lines, but not at the OH line wavelengths.
Table 9: Approximate Spectroscopic Sensitivies
|Magnitude in 1 hour; 10 sigma
|JH, between OH lines
|JH, on OH line peak
The FLAMINGOS MOS wheel contains single slits of widths 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 20 pixels. The 3 and 6-pixel slits cover almost the entire array length, but the others cover approximately 65% of the array. In addition, there is a 3-pixel long slit usually installed in one of the 11 MOS positions.
Additional 2, 3, and 4-pixel wide custom slit masks useable for observations of compact objects also can be installed in the MOS wheel. These masks have two 60 arcsec long slits (at the 4-m) offset by 60 arcsec on either side of the center. At the center is a 10-arcsec square hole which can be used for target acquisition. This permits one to acquire and center a target in the hole prior to offsetting to the slit without the need to move the MOS and decker wheels between imaging and spectroscopic positions. For easily-identified targets, this can save some acquisition overhead at the telescope.
Important Note: In June 2006, the MOS wheel was found to have shifted axially from the actual input focal plane defined by the camera dewar optics by approximately 2 mm. This produced a significant defocus of the MOS slitlets and long slits in the MOS wheel. The cause of this is unknown, but might have been within the camera dewar. Subsequent investigation of the collimator and camera optics showed them to be operating as designed, so the ultimate cause remains a mystery. This problem was initially addressed by shimming the MOS masks in the wheel so they (and any long slits mounted in mask frames) were in focus. In May 2008, the detector itself was shifted axially to bring the MOS wheel nearly back into focus, so both the MOS positions and built-in slits can be used.
There is variation in spectroscopic image quality (FWHM of unresolved spectral lines) with wavelength, which is particularly noticeable in JH spectra, since they subtend the entire width of the detector. This is a consequence of the skew aberration within the large angle (35°) of the prism component of the disperser and is inherent to the design of the instrument. Fortunately the effect is most noticeable in the center of the spectrum (corresponding to the telluric absorption between the J and H windows) and only at the long end (1.75 - 1.80 microns) of the H band.
NOAO presently supports multi-object spectroscopy from the community only at the Kitt Peak 4-m telescope.
Masks will be made from user-supplied celestial coordinates (α, δ), in either sexigecimal or decimal format (the latter being preferred). These will need to be provided to NOAO several weeks in advance of the observing run (see below). Details will be provided to successful proposers. In addition, it is possible to use the .pos output files from the University of Florida mask design program working with FLAMINGOS pre-images, although NOAO cannot provide operational support for use of this program. The slit mask field on the 4-m is 3.1 x 9.5 arcmin, with the long axis along the slits (perpendicular to the dispersion).
The coordinates will need to be accurate enough to ensure that objects are centered on the slit (a 2-pixel slit is ~0.6 arcsec at the 4-m). Each mask must contain at least three well-distributed setup star apertures typically 8 arcsec square. These stars are required to acquire the field and center the target objects on their respective slits, since it is seldom practical to check mask alignment using program objects directly. Note that these stars will produce their own spectra during the observations, so the real estate in the dispersion axis occupied by the setup stars is not available for program objects. The acquisition and centering procedures involve the use of the IRAF ucsclris.xbox task and are fully described in the 4-m FLAMINGOS Observers Guide.
However, recent experience suggests that by ensuring during the afternoon that the MOS masks are precisely aligned with the columns of the array (by adjusting the zero point of the MOS wheel motion), almost no rotational tweaking of the masks is necessary to set up on the alignment stars. In addition, if one of the alignment star apertures can be made sufficiently large (25 arcsec), it may not be necessary to move back and forth from the mask to the imaging aperture during the setup process and it is often possible to properly center the alignment stars within their respective boxes without resorting to the rather time-consuming ucsclris.xbox task.
The mask wheel holds 11 masks; cycling the MOS dewar containing the mask wheel takes a good part of the day, so one is limited to 11 MOS fields per night. In general, one is doing well to use 4 - 5 masks/night, so one can usually use a set of masks for 2 - 3 nights.
The full suite of spectroscopic capabilities is being offered, but prospective users should read the caveats on spectroscopy below.
Setup of spectroscopic observations can be time-consuming, and observers will need to do significant pre-observation planning.
For long slit spectroscopy, unless the program objects are bright enough to be easily centered (H<17 or so on the 4-m), a nearby offset star is strongly recommended. This should be close enough to permit guider-controlled offsets on the 4-m. Long-slit observations on objects fainter than H~16 are probably best done on the 4-m rather than at the 2.1-m.
Long-slit spectroscopy at the 2.1-m is possible, but more complicated than at the 4-m. The 2.1-m does not have a movable guide probe, but instead utilizes a fixed off-axis mirror feeding the guider ICCD camera. The guide field is approximately 5.5 x 4.2 arcmin and is roughly 200 arcsec E and 1500 arcsec S of the FLAMINGOS field center. Although one can position a cursor to guide on a star anywhere in this field, it is not possible to reposition the mirror to cover a wider patrol field. Note that one must allow sufficient clearance from the N-S edges of the field to beam switch along the slit while keeping the guide star in the field of view. We strongly recommend that investigators check for potential guide stars prior to submitting a proposal for 2.1-m spectroscopy, particularly for fields out of the galactic plane. Alternatively, one should be prepared to observe alternate program objects in the event that some of the primary targets may not be observable due to the lack of a suitable guide star.
Note, too, that large offsets along the slit (as opposed to typical 10 arcsec or so of "dither") on either telescope will require careful setup to ensure that the object is centered on the slit at both beam positions.
For multi-object spectroscopy, observers will need accurate coordinates of their program objects, and of three setup stars in the program field. Details of the coordinate requirements will be provided to successful proposers. Anyone planning such observations should also plan to obtain the required coordinates and provide them to KPNO support at least 4 weeks in advance of scheduled time to permit vendor fabrication of the masks. The input coordinate files must be converted at NOAO to a machine-readble form and then sent to the mask vendor, who must fit the work into their schedule, so we strongly advise allowing a comfortable time margin. In addition, because personnel at both NOAO and the mask vendor are often on vacation at the end of the calendar year, observers for MOS runs scheduled in January should plan on having their coordinates submitted prior to the beginning of the preceding December.
In writing proposals, observers should allow approximately 20 minutes for acquisition and set-up for standard (point source) long slit observations. They should allow at least 45 minutes for MOS observations, probably more for the first field of the run, or if non-cardinal position angles are used. Anyone considering observations different from the standard types described above should consult with NOAO (or Florida) staff beforehand to confirm that the observations are practical, and to properly allow for overheads in their proposal.
Because the sky background has spectral structure (see Figure 1 above), there is no spectroscopic equivalent to flatfielding on the sky, as is commonly done for imaging. It is therefore necessary to obtain dedicated flatfields using the telescope flatfield lights to illuminate the interior of the dome. As with imaging dome flats, one should take a number (> 10) of images of the illuminated dome, followed by an equal number with the lights off for bias subtraction. Because there is a thermal continuum component (particularly in the HK mode), one should not use darks as the bias reference for the flats.
Since there is some flexure within the instrument, we recommend that dome flats be taken with the telescope in approximately the same orientation as used during an observation. This is particularly important for MOS observations, since the slit lengths are generally short, and any flexure will result in a relative displacement of the observation and flatfield slit illumination functions. For MOS observations, it is important to obtain separate flatfields for each MOS mask to ensure that the same portions of the array are illuminated by both the observations and flatfields. The easiest way to accomplish this is to rotate the dome in front of the telescope after an observation (or one may want to move the telescope back to its position at the observation midpoint) and illuminate the interior of the dome with the flatfield lights.
For longslit observations, the effects of flexure will be evident only at the ends of the slit, so it may be acceptable to obtain a single set of flatfield observations at the beginning or end of the night using the standard White Spot.
The comparison source built into the 4-m rotator/guider has a limited projection field (since it was designed for the RC spectrograph) which will not fill the 3.1 x 9.5 arcmin field of the MOS or longslit input, so its use for flatfielding is not recommended. If one is using one of the KPNO custom slits with the acquisition box in the center and two 1 arcmin long slits on either side, it is possible to use the 4-m comparison source.
The atmospheric OH emission lines which appear in the raw observations provide a natural template for wavelength calibration. These lines are well-distributed throughout the J, H, and most of the K bands, out to about 2.32 microns.When doing MOS observations, each spectrum will have a unique wavelength zero point, which is a function of the location of the slit in the dispersion coordinate, so the OH lines are generally the most useful calibrator. It is possible, on the 4-m telescope, to use the HeNeAr emission line calibration source in the guider/rotator (there is no guider or calibration source at the 2.1-m telescope). However, because this source (like the continuum source) does not fully illuminate the MOS input field, it may not be useful for MOS calibrations.
At the spectral resolution of FLAMINGOS, many of the OH lines (and some of the HeNeAr lines) will be blended. Therefore, it is important to select isolated lines which can be confidently identified when wavelength calibrating the spectra. Figures 5 and 6 show calibrated spectra of the HeNeAr source taken through a 4-pixel slit. Files of both the OH lines and HeNeAr lines may be downloaded for use in calibrating spectra. The files have multiple columns corresponding to vacuum wavenumbers, vacuum wavelengths, and "air" wavelengths. One may select the desired column to create the calibration of your choice by using the IRAF fields task. For example, to pick column 4 in the file "OH_lines.txt" (air wavelengths), execute in IRAF:
fields OH_lines.txt 4 > OH_lines.ang.dat
The latter file can then be used as the line reference source for the identify task (you may need to sort the file so that the numbers are monotonically increasing for the automatic identification to work properly).
There is some small distortion of the FLAMINGOS field from the wide field camera.In addition, a grism (unlike a reflection grating) will not in general have a linear relation between pixel and sin(b), since the prism itself has some dispersion. As a result, it may be necessary to use a relatively high order function (i.e., Legendre order 4 or 5) to get a fit over the entire JH or HK region. One can experiment with breaking the spectrum into separate bands and fitting the wavelengths within each band separately.
The HK spectrum covers significantly less than the full 2048 pixels. We recommend truncating the spectral image at the end of the K band (2.45 microns) before carrying out the wavelength identification to keep the fitting function well-behaved.
Figure 5: Wavelength fit for the JH spectroscopy mode to a HeNeAr spectrum. The fit used 50 lines, a Legendre order 5 polynomial, with an rms of 1.4 A.
Figure 6:
Wavelength fit for the HK spectroscopy mode
to a HeNeAr spectrum. The fit used 15 lines, a Legendre order 4
polynomial, with an rms of 1.7 A. The spectrum was truncated to ~ 1400 pixels
prior to the fitting.
6. Operations Issues
Temperature Readout
The temperatures of both the detector mount and the work surface of the MOS dewar are logged every 10 minutes and stored on flmn-2m-1a and flmn-4m-1a in the subdirectories /home/2mguest/Temperature_Data and /home/4mguest/Temperature_Data when FLAMINGOS is in use at the 2.1-m and 4-m telescopes, respectively. Every time the temperature daemon is restarted, a new logfile is created with the general form "Temperature.4mguest.2005.Mar.29.0001.dat" The current open file is also plotted on the terminal. It is important to keep an eye on the temperatures by periodically referring to either the temperature plots or the Status GUI, to ensure that neither the camera nor the MOS dewars have exhausted their supply of LN2. Ideally, the camera dewar holds ~ 30 hr and thus needs refilling only once/day. The MOS dewar holds > 14 hr and thus should be filled twice/day, at the beginning and end of the night. There are some circumstances which can result in shorter hold times, with the risk of running out of cryogen during the night:
A poor vacuum will result in accelerated boiloff and a shorter hold time. This is primarily an issue with the MOS dewar, which is brought up to atmospheric pressure and re-pumped every time the masks are changed.
It is possible to misinterpret splashing of LN2 from the vent port as a full dewar and thus end up only partially filling the tank. When filling, ensure that there is a steady stream of LN2 from the vent port.
If the telescope is moved to an unusual position during the daytime (e.g., to the SE annex at the 4-m), the instrument may end up in an orientation which results in spilling significant amounts of LN2 from the dewar.
It is also important to recognize what can be considered "normal " behavior, in contrast to a clear sign of cryogen exhaustion.
The detector temperature is read by a sensor on the detector mount, which is strapped to the LN2 flask of the camera dewar. It will generally vary slowly with time, in response to the dome temperature, but usually by no more than 0.5 K over a day. A significant monotonic increase in temperature should be a warning sign of cryogen exhaustion.
The MOS temperature is measured by a sensor on the top of the MOS work surface, which is the top surface of the LN2 tank in the MOS dewar. Copper rods extending down into the LN2 provide the thermal path to the cryogen. As the LN2 level drops, the thermal path between the work surface and the liquid becomes longer, so the temperature (under a constant thermal load) will slowly increase. In addition, the orientation of the instrument may increase or decrease the thermal conductance between the liquid and the work surface. As a result, one can see fluctuations of several degrees on top of a monotonic increase during the course of a night. Figures 7 - 9 illustrate the temperature profiles one can expect during normal operation, exhaustion of LN2, and the forced warmup using the MOS dewar heaters.
The FLAMINGOS User manual notes that the MOS temperature should be nominally in the 75 - 85 K range, but under some conditions and orientations, values above 90 K may be seen. The critical factor which identifies cryogen exhaustion is a rapid monotonic temperature increase which continues even if the instrument is returned to an upright orientation. Temperatures as high as 120 K will not introduce noticeable thermal radiation into either spectroscopic or imaging observations, but one should not attempt to move the MOS or decker wheels under such conditions, since the drive train will not be isothermal, and the mechanisms may operate poorly or not at all.
Figure 7: Temperature profile of the detector (red) and MOS work surface (black) over a 16 hour time period. The MOS dewar was filled (F) at about 0100, but the LN2 ran out at about 1100. Note that the temperature rises approximately linearly at about 12 K/hr. The dewar was refilled at 1300 and required about 30 minutes to return to a normal operating temperature.
Figure 8: Temperature profile of the detector (red) and MOS work surface (black) over a 24 hour time period. The instrument was used for normal observing until 1140, when the MOS heaters were turned on to permit access to the MOS wheel. This results in an initial rise as the work surface heats up, then a more gradual rise as the residual LN2 is boiled off. At about 1240, the LN2 was gone and the warmup accelerated to about 50 K/hr until the target temperature of 300 K was reached. The dewar was refilled (F) at 1900 and reached a normal operating temperature in about 4 hours.
Figure 9: Exploded view of Fig.8, showing the MOS temperature profile during a normal observing period. The MOS dewar was filled (F) at about 0100 and used for observing until 1140, when the heater was turned on. The fluctuations of up to 10 K during this period are due to a combination of a monotonic increase as the LN2 slowly boils off and changes in the thermal conductance path between the LN2 and the MOS temperature sensor as the orientation of the instrument changes during the night. Occasional jumps in both the detector and MOS temperature (which occasionally give unphysical temperature readouts) are due to noise during the sampling and are not a cause for concern.
Occasionally, the MCE4 will read out prematurely and produce an image which looks like a plush pillow. In almost all cases, this is a random event and the following image will appear normal (although the count level may be down). The cause of this is probably noise interference which causes the MCE4 to read out before the integration is completed, resulting in the initial frame of the double correlated sampled image. On some occasions, this behavior will persist, requiring a reboot of the MCE4, as described in the Troubleshooting section of the FLAMINGOS 4-meter Observer's Guide. If this does not cure the symptom, it is possible that the array is actually saturated from excess light or from the detector warming up. We suggest the following checks of the system:
Figure 10: Representative FLAMINGOS images showing saturation due to excess radiation (left panel) and a "bad" read due to a premature readout of the array. Note that the dead pixels in the lower left corner show up clearly in the saturated image, but not in the bad read.


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At this point, I think we've seen all we're going to see in regards to the advertising materials for Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. Now, it's all about how many variations on those ads we're going to see. Last week, we delivered to you a series of character one-sheets. Those designs have been compiled into a banner you'll likely be seeing in a theater near you.
Thanks to the Lebanese Cinema Movie Guide.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told his son Ali Musa Gilani on Wednesday to return home "immediately" and take part in the ephedrine case investigation, Express News reported.
The premier's son received his first clean chit from a parliamentary committee in the drug quota scandal earlier on Wednesday.
Chairman National Assembly Standing Committee on Narcotics Control Murtaza Javed Abbasi said there is some evidence available against the principal secretary to the prime minister and former health secretary in the ephedrine quota issue, but no concrete evidence has come on record against the premier's son, Ali Musa Gilani.
Abbasi also said that the narcotics secretary has categorically refused to appear before the standing committee probing the scandal.
Before his name could be placed on the Exit Control List (ECL) for his alleged role in a Rs7 billion drug quota scandal, the recently elected MNA had left for South Africa on April 10.


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Results 1 to 8 of 8
October 17th, 2001, 04:43 PM #1
I own 2hostit.com ... have a resale deal with interland (old hostpro), tried host rocket (LOL), but, I don't want to do a hosting thing, nor offer affiliates stuff on it, just too many headaches! What if I offered Free subdomain hosting? (ie abestweb.2hostit.com)?
It would be offered as ...
logo (120X60)+468x60 banner+120X60 ad as either header or footer
... Whatcha think?
October 18th, 2001, 03:16 AM #2
No offence, but that sounds like quite a lot. Tripod/Lycos only pops up 1 banner, unless you close it and it pops up on every page you open (best to minimize it [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] ).
Would you be offering Frontpage extensions along with the FTP option?
Would you be offering CGI access?
What kind of space would you offer? 5MB/10MB/100MB/something in between?
Would you force the header/footer (and site) into frames? (as NBCI did with their free hosting).
Sorry for all the questions, but they had to be asked (not just for myself) [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]
October 20th, 2001, 01:46 AM #3
I am not trying to knock your idea Haiko but in my humble opinion, and who am I? shh! don't tell me, most people would opt for somebody who only requires 1 banner or logo to be shown.
I would have thought being a reseller was the way to go.
October 30th, 2001, 08:26 PM #4
That's an awful lot of ads...no good for an affiliate site--too many leaks!
Cut that down, and don't force the site into frames, and there may be some possibilities--but there's an awful lot of free hosts already!
Reselling's probably the best bet. Plus, those free hosts get lots of CIA clicks (at least Angelfire draws the feds like gnats)! So if you don't want the gov't looking over your shoulder, that may not be the way to go...
As for what the gnats were looking at, seems they must think Gardening is subversive...
October 30th, 2001, 11:36 PM #5
Well, you can make explosives from some fertilisers Leader, I guess they have to try to cover all bases to be on the safe side.
October 30th, 2001, 11:59 PM #6
October 31st, 2001, 02:04 PM #7
Gordon--yeah, that's true!
I got quite a bit of activity on my "drying herbs" page when I put it up, too, lol! I wonder if they were disappointed to find the Herbs I meant were ones like basil, oregano, and dill...
As for the fertilizer, I don't even mention that kind. Even though That Kind is supposed to make a French marigold able to grow to 3 FEET high (French ones usually grow about 6 inches-1 foot tall)... I always cuss double when terrorists use it to make bombs because all the garden centers quit carrying it! Just when it'd be okay for them to carry it again, BOOOOOM...
Heyder--when I had tracking on over at AF it always showed a lot of government traffic, especially when I first put the site up. I figure a lot of the illegal sites must be on Free hosted sites, so the feds check 'em all out as a matter of course... That's okay, though--I think I picked up a couple of subscribers. As a matter of comparison, my paid site didn't get any CIA hits at all (although I did get one from the Dept. of Labor...), but Angelfire had hits from every agency under the sun! Probably still does, but that site doesn't have hit tracking on it anymore so I don't know for sure.
October 31st, 2001, 02:26 PM #8

quote:
That's an awful lot of ads...no good for an affiliate site--too many leaks!

2 ads and a logo? it's the same as freeservers [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img]
How about a forced top frame that is 20 pixels high and would have:
Logo -> Random text ad -> propaganda -> Join now button
Reselling is just too much of a headace for me and there is just way to much competition, I'd rather sell the name, if you think that this set up wouldn't work either.
Three foot tall marigolds WOW! I'd hate to see the bee that propagates it :eek: [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
PS. If any one is interested in it (2hostit.com) email me at firstname.lastname@example.com with an offer.
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Population of 2 coins at this grade level with 0 graded higher.
This Gold Mexican Proof 200 Pesos Commemorative is an absolutely stunning coin that will stand out in any collection, and because of their limited mintage of 4998 , they are rarely seen in America! This new Bicentenary 200 Pesos Gold coin features the "Winged Liberty" Angel on the obverse and the Mexican Eagle with Snake on the reverse. This coin weighs in at 37.5 grams and is .900 fine with 1.2057 AGW. It commemorates the declaration of Independence from Spain made by Father Miguel Hidalgo on Sept. 16, 1810. We have only a few in stock, so grab one while you can!
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Explore Related Concepts
Examples of Uniform Linear MotionWe will first describe the definition of motion before moving on to the examples of uniform linear motion and its definition.
Consider a person walking on a straight footpath. The person covers 1 kilometer in half an hour and 2 kilometers in the next half hour. Now this will not be uniform linear motion. This will be non-uniform linear motion because although the person is moving in a straight line however his speed is not constant. So if there is no external agent which influences the speed of a moving body the body will hence continue to be in the state of motion with the constant speed. However this does not happen because we have free agents like force of friction which come in to play during such phenomena.
Consider a boy running a race of 800 meters. This boy completes the first lap of this race in three minutes. Now the path is straight and after every 400 meter the person hands over the baton to another person. So let us assume that in the 800 meters race the race is completed in 6 minutes. So this is an example of uniform linear motion as the time taken to complete both the 400 meter distances is constant and hence the speed can be considered constant. As the speed is constant we do not have any acceleration and so this is uniform linear motion.
Best Results From Wikipedia Yahoo Answers Youtube
From Wikipedia
Linear motion is motion along a straight line, and can therefore be described mathematically using only one spatial dimension. It can be uniform, that is, with constant velocity (zero acceleration), or non-uniform, that is, with a variable velocity (non-zero acceleration). The motion of a particle (a point-like object) along the line can be described by its position x, which varies with t (time). Linear motion is sometimes called rectilinear motion.
An example of linear motion is that of a ball thrown straight up and falling back straight down.
The average velocity v during a finite time span of a particle undergoing linear motion is equal to
- v = \frac {\Delta d}{\Delta t}.
The instantaneous velocity of a particle in linear motion may be found by differentiating the position x with respect to the time variable t. The acceleration may be found by differentiating the velocity. By the fundamental theorem of calculus the converse is also true: to find the velocity when given the acceleration, simply integrate the acceleration with respect to time; to find displacement, simply integrate the velocity with respect to time.
This can be demonstrated graphically. The gradient of a line on the displacement time graph represents the velocity. The gradient of the velocity time graph gives the acceleration while the area under the velocity time graph gives the displacement. The area under an acceleration time graph gives the velocity.
Linear motion is the most basic of all motions. According to Newton's first law of motion, objects not subjected to forces will continue to move uniformly in a straight line indefinitely. Under every-day circumstances, external forces such as gravity and friction will cause objects to deviate from linear motion and can cause them to come to a rest.
For linear motion embedded in a higher-dimensional space, the velocity and acceleration should be described as vectors, made up of two parts: magnitude and direction. The direction part of these vectors is the same and is constant for linear motion, and only for linear motion
From Yahoo Answers
Answers:The movement may be sustaining a constant speed, but the body receives a constant acceleration: the centripetal force. If this force is of constant amplitude, it however changes constantly in direction!
Answers:Motion implies momentum, which implies velocity. Linear implies a straight line. Accelerating implies changing velocity. And uniform implies constancy. So, when a body moves in a straight line and accelerates at a constant rate, the body is said to have an uniformly accelerated linear motion.
Answers:Uniform linear motion is motion in which the velocity is unchanged in magnitude and direction. In other words, its acceleration is 0. The equations of that motion are: a = 0 v = constant x = vt + x0 (x zero is the initial coordinate) Uniformly accelerated/decelerated motion is motion in which the magnitude of the velocity increases/decreases uniformly over time, that is it changes the same amount in 1 unit of time at every moment. This motion has a constant acceleration a. The motion is uniformly accelerated or uniformly decelerated depending on whether a > 0 or a < 0. The equations of that motion are: a = constant, positive or negative, but different from 0. v = at + v0 (v zero is the initial velocity) . . . . . . . . (v - v0) / t is the same at all time t x = at + v0t + x0
Answers:First of all this is not a uniform circular motion problem. The train is slowing down. You are asked the to find the acceleration at a particular instant. Acceleration is a vector, meaning that it has magnitude and direction. The linear acceleration is just v(final) - v(initial) divided by the time. You have that information (although you need to get the units right). The centripetal acceleration is v(squared) divided by r. You also have that information. Because these two accelerations are perpendicular to each other, the magnitude of the overall acceleration is the square root of the the sum of the squares of each acceleration. (Sorry about not having mathematical symbols available here). To get the direction of the acceleration, use trigonometry of the right triangle
From Youtube


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text:
Rugby player Matt Wilkes is targeting a return to Ludlow's first team just three months after being airlifted to hospital with a serious back injury.
The 20-year-old from Sheet Road was told he came within inches of being paralysed after fracturing two vertebrae in his back and compressing another.
Matt had a call from the North Midlands Under-20s, inviting him to play, as he lay in bed recovering from the injury, sustained in October's match at Stoke.
Matt, a hooker, says he spent two-and- a-half-months watching day-time television prog rammes like the Jeremy Kyle Show.
But the former Ludlow College student has made a remarkable recovery.
He has been given the all-clear to return to the sport and scored a try in his comeback match for the second team against Bridgnorth.
Matt will be at The Linney this Saturday for the visit of Stoke.
The club will be holding a raffle to raise money for the Air Ambulance.
"A lot of people have said that I must be mad wanting to come back," said Matt, a former chef, who is now looking for work.
"But I can't wait to get back into Ludlow's first team. I love my rugby - it's my life."
Matt said he was 'quite shocked' after being hurt in the Midlands One West defeat at Stoke.
The match was abandoned after 61 minutes but the 38-5 scoreline stood.
"It was a ruck," recalled Matt, whose dad, Adrian, played for Ludlow in 1979.
"I tackled someone and I went down on to the ball. I got rucked out and got caught on my back.
"I tried to get up but I couldn't. I didn't realise that I was taken to hospital in an air ambulance.
"I fractured two vertebrae and compressed another one right in the middle of my back.
"I was in hospital for two days and I was told that I had to stay in bed for two-and-a-half months.
"I went back to the hospital in Stoke on December 13 and I had a scan.
"They told me if the injuries had been deeper, I would have been paralysed.
I couldn't work and I wasn't allowed to do anything for 10 weeks apart from watch television."
Matt says he hopes to return to the first-team fold in February.
"I am not trying to think about what could have happened and my family are fully behind me returning to the sport.
"I had missed playing so much and scoring against Bridgnorth was the best feeling.
"I am going to play another couple of second-team games and see how it goes."
Whites at the Rose and Crown in Tenbury are supporting Saturday's pre-match meal at The Linney.


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|Sport, 1 pitch, 45'
|YDS: 5.11 French: 6c+ Ewbanks: 23 UIAA: VIII- ZA: 23 British: E4 5c [details]
|Year round but summer is warm
|Page Views:
|Submitted By:
|1Eric Rhicard on Mar 6, 2007
|Comments on Armed Robbery
|Add Comment
|Show which comments —
By joshf
From: missoula, mt
Oct 25, 2007
|fun climb. Hidden holds throughout make it a lot easier. nice big holds for the most part with the crux at the beginning. if your tall you can skip the .11 part and deadpoint the rail strait up. i'm about 6.4 and i didn't need to jump or anything. otherwise the start is a bouldery .11. all these climbs are great to push yourself on because they are all air and the rock is fantastic.
By Boodge Nomchompski
Mar 9, 2008
rating: 5.11 6c+ 23 VIII- 23 E4 5c
|This is a ridiculously fun route!
By jbak
Jan 19, 2009
rating: 5.11 6c+ 23 VIII- 23 E4 5c
|Did this route again yesterday and thought "why do I only give this thing 2 stars ?...it's great...good moves, action all the way, (chains could be longer though !)". So now I give it 3.
By Derek Anderson
From: Tucson,AZ
Dec 7, 2009
|I love the quality of the routes in this area !! This climb is amazingly fun!
By Adam Block
From: Tucson, AZ
Dec 22, 2009
|I love this route, one of my favorites on Lemmon.
By dale polen
From: arivaca, az
Dec 29, 2010
|Great climb. Dereck good job on this.
By J tot
From: Tempe, AZ
Oct 10, 2011
rating: 5.11c 6c+ 24 VIII- 24 E4 6a
great climb.
Route IS taller than 45'
By 1Eric Rhicard
Mar 22, 2014
|Replaced the last two Original bolts on this climb with 1/2 inch ASCA bolts right after Aleix took a 20 footer on to the top one. So little rust and almost no damage convinces me they would have been good for a lot longer.
By Austin Sobotka
From: Tucson, AZ
May 15, 2015
rating: 5.11 6c+ 23 VIII- 23 E4 5c
|A good route, although it didn't quite live up to its hype for me. The upper section, in particular, wasn't very enjoyable. That being said, the first few moves are pretty great and the very short lived finger-lock is cool.
By Alex Burton
From: Tucson
Feb 8, 2016
|This route is extremely fun! I needed to Dyno the initial part, and for the most part it was hard to find hand placements. Once you get the hand holds they are wonderful. Over hang makes this route pumpy so I would flash this as fast as possible. Definitely try this when you are at prison camp.


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India's forest used to stretch all across India but was cleared for tea fields. The monsoon forests of southern India are home of the thousands of brightly colored birds.
Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist. Won the Nobel Prize award in Literature.
Rikki and The Cobras
Rikki and The Cobras hated each other. The Cobras knew that Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was a mongoose and that he eats snakes. Rikki killed Nag and went after the eggs when Nagaina tried to kill Teddy.
Mongoose are mammals. Mongoose live in burrows and are nondiscriminatory animals. Mongooses are primarily found in Africa, their range covering most of the continent. The mongoose was introduced to the Caribbean and Hawaiian islands in the 19th century to control rat and snake populations.
There are 270 different types of cobras. Cobras produce large amount of venom. Cobras live 20 years in the wild. They might live longer in captivity. Female cobras lay between 20-40 eggs. Their metabolism is very slow, so they need to eat every couple of months.


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8 Sports You Didn't Know Were SportsPeople have lots of imagination and even more free time. Here are 8 sports you didn't even know were sports.
Freediving Record Holder Dies During Tournament After Reaching 72-Meter DepthA 32-year-old New York City man who broke the U.S. constant weight record for freediving soon after beginning his competitive career last year died Sunday while participating in a tournament in the Bahamas, police said.


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Progression, a series of instructional DVD's has come out with a New video to add to the collection. If you haven't seen the trailer, you can see it in high def quality on YouTube.
"We want to keep making the best instructional content possible but we need you to give us some insight so we can give you that leg up and move you onto the next trick. So we have a new 16GB iPod Touch up for grabs, all you have to do is spend 5 minutes completing our Questionnaire and we'll add you to the prize draw, plus 10 runner ups will get one of our new Progression T-shirts that we'll be release in the Spring."
And if you don't want an iPod(?) and want to stay anonymous then thats fine too, just leave your personal details off the questionnaire, its your answers that matter to us!
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By JOHNNY BRADIGAN, DAVE MINK
NASSAU, N.Y. — Army Staff Sergeant Derek Farley, a resident of Nassau in Rensselaer County, has become the third local soldier in the last 2 months to be killed while serving in the war in Afghanistan.
Farley, 24, an Explosive Ordinance Disposal Technician, was killed Tuesday morning in Bala Boluk, Farah, Afghanistan when a roadside bomb he was attempting to disarm detonated, according to the Department of Defense.
He was just two weeks away from finishing what would have been his second tour of duty in Afghanistan.
A 2004 graduate of Columbia High School in East Greenbush, Farley was also a veteran of the war in Iraq. He was awarded with a Purple Heart in 2007 for being wounded during his service there.
"(Farley's) death will be a consistent reminder of the sacrifices that our men and women of our military are prepared to make as they fight to preserve freedom for ourselves and people around the globe," said Rensselaer County Executive Kathleen Jimino.
State Senator Roy McDonald said in a statement, "To his family and friends, words cannot express my sincerest condolences as you grieve this loss. May the memory of his selfless acts, concern for his fellow soldiers and love of country help to ease the burden that we shall all carry in the days to come."
Nassau Town Supervisor David Fleming also expressed his sadness over Farley's death, who he referred to as a "local hero".
Flags at all Rensselaer County government buildings were directed by Jimino to be flown at half-staff in honor of Farley. Supervisor Fleming directed all businesses and emergency services in the Town of Nassau to lower their flags as well.
The Department of Defense reports Farley was assigned to the 18th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 16th Sustainment Brigade, 21st Theater Sustainment Command out of Grafenwoehr, Germany.
Farley is the third local soldier to die in Afghanistan since June. Private First Class David Taylor Miller, a 19-year old from Saratoga Springs, and Benjamin Osborn, a 27-year old Army Specialist from Queensbury, were killed just days apart in separate incidents.
Derek Farley's father, Kenneth Farley, is a Vietnam Veteran.


text:
Coupling factors
Coupling factors
proteins that restore phosphorylating ability to mitochondria that have lost it, i.e., have become uncoupled so that oxidation and electron transport no longer produces atp. Usually termed coupling factor F1, F2, etc.
Synonym: c factors.
Please contribute to this project, if you have more information about this term feel free to edit this page.


text:
PRZOOM - /newswire/ -
Redwood Shores, CA, United States, 2012/09/24 - Leading Industry Analyst Firm, Analysys Mason, Highlights Oracles Software Architecture, End-to-end Product Integration and Momentum in Emerging Markets (NASDAQ: ORCL) - Oracle.com. NYSE, NASDAQ: ORCL
Oracle today announced that it has been named the global market leader in service fulfillment by leading industry analyst firm, Analysys Mason, in its report,Service Fulfillment Systems: Worldwide Market Shares 2011.
In a highly competitive and consolidating market that is expected to grow to almost US$3.5 billion by 2015(1), Oracle has become the solution of choice for communications service providers (CSPs) to plan, build and optimize their networks, rapidly design and launch new services and efficiently deliver customer orders.
Oracle is ranked as the leader in both overall market share and product-related services revenue in the report. Of the top six suppliers by market share in the report, Oracle was the only one to grow its overall market share from 2010 to 2011.
The report identifies the leaders in the service fulfillment systems market and provides suppliers' worldwide market shares in a number of sub-categories. Oracle is credited as a market leader in the Activation, Order Management and Inventory Management categories, as well as having a notable presence in the Engineering Tools category.
As further evidence of Oracles global prominence in the service fulfillment market, throughout 2011, numerous customers selected or deployed solutions based on Oracle Communications Service Fulfillment portfolio, including SKY Brasil, Telefonica Germany, Turkcell Superonline, LG U+, KT and Colt.
Oracle Communications suite of service fulfillment products includes Oracle Communications Network Resource Management and Oracle Communications Rapid Service Design and Order Delivery.
Supporting Quotes
Oracles emergence as the overall global service fulfillment market leader is the result of its standards-based productized solutions, its sales reach, global reputation especially in emerging markets and its willingness to take an increasingly active role in major transformation programs within large CSPs, said Mark Mortensen, principal analyst, Analysys Mason.
We continue to provide pre-integrated, commercial-off-the-shelf-based service fulfillment solutions, which may be deployed in a standalone manner or as part of an end-to-end BSS/OSS stack. These solutions enable our customers to rapidly deploy next generation services and technologies, streamline and automate order delivery and network engineering processes as well as increase operational efficiencies, Bhaskar Gorti, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications.
(1) Analysys Mason Service fulfilment systems: worldwide forecast 20112015, by Mark H. Mortensen, October, 2011.
About Oracle Communications
Only Oracles software and systems span the communications industry technology landscape from carrier-grade servers, storage and IT infrastructure, to mission-critical business and operational support systems and service delivery platforms; from business intelligence applications and retail point-of-sale solutions to the Java platform running on more than three billion mobile and handheld devices. Oracle helps 100 of the world's top 100 service providers innovate and exploit new business models, build strong, profitable customer relationships, and streamline operations. For more information, visit oracle.com/communications.
About Oracle
Oracle (oracle.com) engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center.
About Oracle in Industries
Oracle industry solutions leverage the company's best-in-class portfolio of products to address complex business processes relevant to the communications industry, helping speed time to market, reduce costs, and gain a competitive edge.
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Janice Clayton, OKeeffe & Company
P: +1.443.759.8151 - E: jclayton[.]okco.com.
Agency / Source: Oracle Corporation
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Driving tractors through fields of poppy plants, Afghan counternarcotics agents started a major opium eradication campaign yesterday in the heartland of the world's largest producer of illicit drugs.
The effort comes amid warnings of another bumper crop that would feed millions of heroin addicts in Asia and the West and endanger Afghanistan's emerging democracy.
Some 1,000 heavily armed police and soldiers guarded the drug agents because Taliban insurgents have threatened to defend the poppy farms, said provincial administrator Ghulam Muhiddin.
However, there were no reports of violence as about 100 tractors moved across the poppy fields, grinding up the young plants in southern Helmand province's Dishu district, he said.
The eradication, part of an initiative funded by the United States and Britain, comes two days after the Afghan government and the United Nations warned that they expect cultivation of opium poppies to increase across large swaths of the country this year.
The government has been criticized for not being tough enough on the drug trade. Counternarcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi has even accused senior government officials of involvement.
Afghanistan is the source of nearly 90 percent of the world's opium and heroin, even though the international community has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into fighting the trade since the Taliban regime was ousted by a US-led invasion in 2001.
When the Taliban ran Afghanistan, its leader banned poppy growing, and cultivation dropped to practically nothing in 2000.
But Afghan and Western counternarcotics officials say the Taliban militia fighting the US-backed government is now implicated in the drug trade, and uses the proceeds to help fund its insurgency.
Poppy eradication started in Kandahar province two weeks ago. About a quarter of Afghanistan's opium is produced in Helmand, more than double the amount of any other province.
''We have started in Dishu and we will work our way up from the south of Helmand to the north, destroying poppies in every district and village," Muhiddin said.
Nationwide, Afghan authorities plan to destroy 50,000 acres of poppy fields. Last year, opium was harvested from about 257,000 acres, yielding more than 4,500 tons of opium.
A Western diplomat said that for Afghanistan to avoid becoming a narco-state, it needs not only to sustain the eradication program, but to crack down on mid- and high-level traffickers and corruption. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The diplomat said wiping out poppy fields in Helmand was the key to controlling opium production in the country.


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CricHQ and Caltex with Techron announce the "5 star performance" campaign.
CricHQ and Caltex with Techron are excited to announce a new campaign to reward "5 star" cricket performances. Club and school players throughout New Zealand will be eligible to win a $5 Caltex StarCash card if their match is scored as part of a verified CricHQ fixture and the required information is captured.
The 5 Star Performance campaign will run through to the end of March 2014, backdated to include winners since November 2013.
The Caltex with Techron awards will be issued to a 'Batsman' and 'Bowler' in each team at every fixture. These will be based on power and economy performances - two key benefits of Caltex with Techron - the 5 Star Fuel.
The "Power Batsman of the Day" will be awarded to the player in the team who hits the most boundaries in a match, while the "Economy Bowler of the Day" award is for the player who has the best bowling economy rate.
Each week the winning players will be notified by email, to the address they have associated with their CricHQ profile. Once the player replies with their postal address a $5 Caltex StarCash card will be delivered free of charge in the post.
In the case of no email address being associated with the player; their team administrator will be notified via email instead.
Caltex StarCash cards can be redeemed at any participating Caltex Service station around the country and can be used to purchase fuel, food, drinks and other items.


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President's Marriage Equality Support Leads to Rise in Support Nationally
Two weeks after the President's announcement of support for marriage equality, a Washington Post/ABC News poll shows more support than ever before, with 53% of the public favoring marriage equality and just 39% opposed. Among key communities, the inference can be made that the President's announcement has shifted support. However, you also see in the data that the President's framing of marriage equality as a state issue has plurality support now as well.
The poll also found that nearly 6 in 10 African-Americans now support gay marriage, up from about 4 in 10 before the president's announcement, according to the Post. While the sample size of African-Americans in the survey was small enough to interpret the results with caution, the substantial size of the shift on the issue suggests that the president's announcement could have had a major impact on attitudes within the black community.
Meanwhile, respondents split about evenly on whether gay-marriage laws should be decided on the state or federal level. Just under half — 49 percent — of those surveyed said marriage should be a state issue, while some 46 percent believe the federal government should decide. Proponents of gay marriage tend to support federal legislation, a likely reaction to voters in 30 states deciding against same-sex marriage.
These would tend to conflict, but this is precisely the President's position. He personally favors marriage equality but thinks the issue should be left to the states. On policy grounds he has sought to remove federal barriers to equality by declining to defend DOMA in court. But the practical effect of a federalist position on marriage is to keep the 30 state bans firmly in place.
The benefit to the President's words come from the shift in opinions. This suggests that use of the bully pulpit as a means to change beliefs and ideas among the public is not useless, as some modern commentators like to profess. And Digby wonders if it can be applied to the economic realm.
Interesting. I wonder if the president properly explaining the government's role in the economy would make any difference.Who knows, maybe it could change a few minds too. Couldn't hurt anyway. At the very least it could make people question the wisdom of deficit reduction as a logical response to a recession or the necessity of slashing the safety net for the future good.
The answer to this is that the Administration is indeed trying to use the bully pulpit on the economy. I don't mean the story about business titans being job creators. The Administration is using the bully pulpit to prove that they've cut spending, taxes and the deficit while in office. That may not be the type of economic bully pulpit use that progressives dream of, but it's what the current group in power believes. And by "myth-busting" the image of a tax and spend Democrat, they feed a far more pernicious myth, that spending causes recessions and that only tax- and deficit-cutting can stop them. That's not only incorrect, it's outright dangerous for the next time the country requires a fiscal stimulus.


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For a preview of how climate change may disrupt the world's people and wildlife, consider the transformations underway in our northernmost state. Over the past few decades, Alaska—along with much of the rest of the Arctic—has been warming more rapidly than any other place on Earth. And according to a soon-to-be-released report, the region should brace itself for even more dramatic change in the future.
The report, scheduled for publication in November, summarizes results of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), a four-year effort by an international team of more than 500 scientists and other Arctic experts—the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of climate change on this vast territory. Says meteorologist and ACIA chairman Robert Corell, the Arctic's climate already has changed "more rapidly and persistently than at any time since the beginning of civilization."
In two of the most affected areas, Alaska and western Canada, Corell reports that winter temperatures have increased by as much as 3 to 4 degrees C over the past 60 years—compared with an average increase of 0.6 degrees C over the past 100 years throughout the rest of the world. By the end of the 21st century, he says, the Arctic is expected to warm by more than twice the global average.
For some Arctic inhabitants, changes in the area and thickness of sea ice will have a greater impact than temperature itself. According to the assessment, sea ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean has shrunk an average of 10 percent over the past 30 years. Based on several computer models, ACIA participants project further losses—with one model predicting that by the middle of this century the Arctic Ocean will be ice free in summer.
That scenario, which would create a shortcut for ships sailing between the Orient and North America and Europe, will be good news for some, including companies eager to exploit the Arctic's mineral and oil wealth. But for thousands of indigenous communities whose lives depend on the environment, and where climate has been stable for many generations, "both cultures and livelihoods will be challenged," says Corell. Some indigenous groups already are struggling to adapt to climate change (see opposite).
Biologists foresee little good news for wildlife. In terrestrial habitats, vegetation zones are shifting northward as temperature rises, with forests expanding into tundra and tundra into polar deserts. One likely result, notes the report, will be a tundra zone smaller than it's been for 21,000 years, significantly decreasing habitat for breeding birds and grazing mammals. Wildlife, meanwhile, is on the move as well, altering ranges and migration routes in an effort to adapt. The problem, says Corell, is that the changes are not synchronous. As some plants and animals move faster or in different directions than others, they are likely to lose species they depend upon for survival. "Climate change is the most significant threat to wildlife worldwide," says Corell, "and we're going to see it first in the Arctic."
One Arctic species, the polar bear, is already in trouble. For the past three decades, Canadian Wildlife Service scientist Ian Sterling has studied a population along western Hudson Bay, where each summer pregnant and nursing females use sea ice as a base for hunting seals, their primary food. But the ice is melting about two weeks earlier than it did 20 years ago, and Sterling found that bears today weigh less and give birth to fewer cubs than they did when it lasted longer. (See National Wildlife, February/March 2004.)
What makes forecasting the future for bears and other Arctic wildlife difficult—and worrisome—is that global warming is not the only variable. According to University of Alaska–Fairbanks Arctic biologist David Klein, lead author of the assessment's chapter on wildlife conservation, "Climate change is perhaps the major driver of change in the Arctic, but there are other forces, including habitat loss, overfishing and pollution." Scientists have discovered that polar bears, for example, have higher concentrations of mercury in their bodies than any other animals on Earth.
Those of us who inhabit more southerly climes cannot rest easy, either. "What happens in the Arctic over the next decade," says Corell, "is likely to happen throughout the world over the next 25 to 30 years."
Laura Tangley is a senior editor for this magazine. For more information on the ACIA report, see
LIVING ON THE FRONTLINESAt a recent United Nations panel, "Climate Change in the North Country," Gwich'in Indian and NWF board member Faith Gemmill described some of the ways climate change has affected her village, about 110 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Portions of her talk are excerpted here.
Climate change is upsetting the delicate balance in many ecosystems. This affects our people's ability to sustain our subsistence livelihoods. I see the changes now when I walk on our lands. The lakes are dry. These lakes are very important subsistence fishing lakes; they have always provided our people with our springtime fishing, and the fish were delicacies. But now the fish are gone.Plants are growing faster, and we have noticed that when it comes time to pick our berries, they have already dropped. The reason is due to strange weather. Each year it is the same nowadays; we are lucky to get berries at all in the summer.The big glaciers that surround our village are melting, and some exist no more. These glaciers are important places for caribou; they take refuge there from heat and mosquitoes. Where do the caribou go now to rest and find relief?
Web Exclusive:
Climate Change May Decimate Alaskan Tundra ...
Among many troubling forecasts in the upcoming Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) is the prediction that Arctic tundra will shrink significantly in the future, eliminating critical feeding and breeding habitat for a variety of wildlife species. At an August meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Seattle, Washington, one researcher bolstered such fears when she presented the results of recent computer modeling.
Dominique Bachelet, an associate professor in Oregon State University's bioengineering department, developed the Dynamic Global Vegetation Model MC1 with colleagues at her school and at the U.S. Forest Service to predict how different climate scenarios might affect vegetation growth, carbon storage, soil processes and other ecological phenomena. Their model suggests that within a century, between 77 and 90 percent of the Alaskan tundra present in 1920 will disappear. A cold, dry habitat characterized by permanently frozen deep soil, an absence of trees and a short growing season for grasses and shrubs, tundra today covers much of the state of Alaska and supports healthy populations of wolves, brown bears, wolverines, caribou, mink, lemmings and other mammals as well as millions of migrating waterfowl.
Unlike many ecosystems, "the tundra has no place to go," said Bachelet, "and it will largely disappear from the Alaskan landscape, along with the related plant, animal and even human ecosystems based upon it."
...and Generate More Earthquakes
During the past century, many Arctic glaciers have gotten smaller or disappeared entirely, and, according to the ACIA and other sources, increasing temperatures and continued shifts in precipitation patterns will accelerate those losses in the future. Now a pair of researchers has discovered what might appear to be an unexpected consequence: more earthquakes in southern Alaska.Jeanne Sauber of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and Bruce Molnia of the U.S. Geological Survey already knew that melting glaciers reduces weight on the Earth's crust, allowing tectonic plates—mobile pieces of the crust—to move around more freely. Colliding plates can then cause a build up of pressure that is often relieved by an earthquake.Using a combination of satellite data, computer models and other tools, Sauber and Molnia examined previous Alaskan earthquakes. The researchers, who reported their findings in the July 2004 Journal of Global and Planetary Change, found that a 1979 tremor in the southern part of the state, known as the St. Elias earthquake, correlated with shrinking and disappearing glaciers in the same region. They calculated that this ice loss would have been sufficient to trigger the quake, which had a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter Scale.—Laura Tangley


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Thalia Sutton is an independent scholar and writer of fiction. She holds a Master's in East Asian Studies from Columbia University in the City of New York, and is delighted every time a form has a box allocated in which to check "Master" as her legal title.
Welcome to the second installment of the Greek Myth in The Game of Thrones series. (Caution! Spoilers through A Song of Ice and Fire book 3!)
George R. R. Martin takes the tropes from his source material and twists them. So: if Cersei, as Hera, finally offed her philandering husband, what spin does Martin give Cersei as Venus?
Cersei as Aphrodite
That's right: Aphrodite, goddess of beauty. Many characters in Martin's series are a combination of multiple ancient characters. Make no mistake; Cersei fills the roles of both Aphrodite and Hera. It's a thrilling twist: The big kahoona of female terror, beauty, and cruelty in Game of Thrones, Cersei would appear to be about 75% Beauty and 25% Wifehood.
It was described to me at a talk at Columbia University in 2010 that "the Greek gods are paradoxes." Aphrodite is a goddess of beauty, but is cruel; Zeus is the god of vows, but does not keep his word to Hera; Hera is the overseer of wifehood, but kills her husband's children; Eros is the god of love, but is never touched — and so on.
Cold, cruel, blonde, physically beautiful, and head of the most powerful house on Olympus, Aphrodite actually controls more hordes than Zeus; all the beautiful people, basically, are her underlings. She's also, famously, birthed from the sea, and has a spot on the Olympic Council along with Hera (Matrimony) and Demeter (Harvest/Earth). Cersei Lannister, Queen, is cold, cruel, blonde, and beautiful; from Casterly Rock (by the sea), land of gold; and overseer of the most numerous and naturally-gorgeous family in all the Seven Kingdoms, the fair-haired Lannisters. Cersei is certainly our Aphrodite. (But wait, you say, she isn't in control of the family; Tywin is! He's not at first, when he's absent from King's Landing. In the first book and a half, she sits prettily on top of the entire Lannister tower, just like Aphrodite.)
Cersei's spot on the small Council is emblematic. Given the misogynistic society rightly portrayed in A Song of Ice and Fire, it would have been perfectly believable, if unexceptional, to have Cersei barred from Small Council activities. However, as a Hera figure, she's there implicitly; and as an Aphrodite figure, she owns it — she tells everyone what to do, via threats of her son's inescapable and notorious wrath.
Jaime as Ares
With Cersei firmly established as our Aphrodite, do we see her consort and her glut of poorly-parented, fair-haired children? Why yes, we do!
Aphrodite's favorite male to take to bed is Ares, the god of bloodlust. Jaime's personal storyline is about a man who feels alive only in battle, and who did one deed that no one will ever forgive him for (typical of Greek tragedies). This is a dead ringer for an Ares-inspired character; but. the cinch of the knot is that he has an affair with our Aphrodite character, Cersei, and fathers her spate of principal children.
Ares is the father, usually, of all of Aphrodite's principal brood, with at least one of them fathered while she is (forcibly) married to someone she detests. She's the ultimate trophy wife, but one who wants to stay single forever. Aphrodite was married to her husband for no other reason than being too powerful in her own right, and wanting to be free. (And the real-life Greek patriarchy saying marriage could be a proper punishment to control strong women, and a proper reward for a man who helped you in an armed conflict (i.e., an alliance tool, Cersei's marriage to Robert). All of this seems quite ingrained in Robert and Cersei's story.
Ares is the kingdom's most powerful combatant and nothing too hard on the eyes, so he fears no societal punishment nor battle. Like Ares, Jaime's life is propped up by glory he can win in war, but in peacetime, he is ridiculed and scorned, public opinion favoring those of more artistic graces. The mythological Ares never improves, but Jaime, put into a situation where he has to reassess himself, finds that there are other things in life beyond the rush of clarity and adrenaline in battle, if he can just open his eyes, and his heart, to the real world, and not be stuck in the world he grew up in. Here we see the "consequences of war," both personal and societal, playing out, as Martin expressed in the Academy interview. And the great twist in this tale is that Ares becomes a decent guy, and it takes Aphrodite much longer to see the forest for the trees. Again, Martin takes our expectations, and our society's tropes, and in a fit of multifaceted character writing, turns them into valuable reading.
Tywin Lannister as Uranus
An argument can be made that the indomitable, infamous, and stone-faced Tywin Lannister is Poseidon — the man who appears off and on as the second-hand of Zeus, and who doesn't ask to overthrow him. There is an aquatic theme to the Lannisters that doesn't have to be there (Casterly Rock could have been inland); and, like Aphrodite, Poseidon has huge hordes of sub-deities. True to Tywin's nature with his armies as he battles Robb Stark, he is also the "Earth Shaker" — the maker of earthquakes. However, where Tywin may be the ill-mannered Poseidon on the battlefield, at home, analysis finds he fits more comfortably with Uranus, the tyrant father to rule them all.
Now, Tywin is just so wonderfully real as a person that I feel the need to identify him with myth is minimal. However, just to round out the family tree, let us take a look at this: both Zeus and Zeus's father (Kronos) committed patricide when they couldn't stand being stunted any longer under the shadow of their father's influence (Uranus is Kronos's father). Zeus's words bill Kronos and Uranus both as great tyrants, who jealously and unjustly kept their children from growing up. Tywin is the ultimate domineering father in Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion's lives — but in an amusing twist, he's not often in the wrong for it when policy is concerned. He leaves death, destruction, and order in his wake (and chaos for his enemies); these are all good things, especially by Ancient Greek standards. It's only in his children that he has resistance.
It's the ultimate commentary on Greek myth: Uranus, who kills all his children (Kronos merely ate them, storing them away), really might have known what he was doing as a ruler, and the impudent youngins that overthrow him really are just juvenile, emotionally-stunted, privileged screw-ups that don't know what they're doing, and fight with each other all the time as a matter of policy. Like Uranus and Kronos, this lack of proper parenting on Tywin's part causes the resulting mess when the children overthrow him and attempt to play the game of regency, just as a good Greek tragedy of inescapable determinism would have it. Considering the patricidal way Tywin goes, the connection to Uranus and Kronos, rather than Poseidon, seems viable.
So, of Kronos and Uranus, why the latter? Uranus slunk off into the background with the Titans when Kronos took over. But he came back with his armies when Zeus took over, and Zeus quickly ended that by killing the Titans in a great war, the Titanomachy. It was a war which he would not have won had he not stolen the magical nuke — the thunderbolt — out from under Kronos's allies. At the end of the war, Zeus cut off Uranus's testicles and threw them in the sea, so that Uranus would no longer be a threat; from that sprang Aphrodite. So yes: Cersei is forever Tywin's bane, and in the most wonderful way is the result of Tywin's own castration by Robert Baratheon's rebellion.
Gregor Clegane as a Titan
As a special bonus to all of you who've stuck with me this far, here's a look at Gregor Clegane. If you're Uranus, and the generation below you rebels, what army do you muster to stop them? Why, Titans of course — beasts the size of mountains, too wild to control. "The Mountain that Rides" is your Titan, Game of Thrones readers. Though he also reminds me way too much of Rasputin.
This Series comes in 8 parts:
1. Introduction; Robert and Cersei as Zeus and Hera (spoilers through book 1)
2. Cersei, Jaime, as Aphrodite, Ares; Tywin Lannister and Gregor Clegane as Uranus and a Titan (spoilers through book 3)
3. Joffery, Myrcella, and Tommen as Eros, Harmonia, and Anteros (spoilers through book 3)
4. Tyrion as Odysseus (Spoilers through book 3)
5. Sansa as Psyche; Lysa Arryn and son as Demeter and Persephone; Littlefinger as Hermes (Spoilers through book 3)
6. Loras and Renly as Achilles and Patroclus (Spoilers through book 1)
7. Brienne and Margaery as Briseis and Helen of Troy (Spoilers through book 2)
8. Stannis and Renly as Apollo and Dionysus; Stannis's Crew as Daedalus, Icarus, and Cassandra (Spoilers through book 2)


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Acta Ortopédica Brasileira
Print version ISSN 1413-7852
FRANCA BISNETO, Edgard de Novaes et al. Arthroscopic and macroscopic evaluation of the lunate medial facet. Acta ortop. bras. [online]. 2011, vol.19, n.6, pp.353-355. ISSN 1413-7852. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-78522011000600006.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the correlation between the presence of a lunate medial facet and the incidence of ligament lesions of the wrist and arthrosis of the proximal pole of the hamate. This study was carried out on cadavers. METHODS: Arthroscopic evaluation and dissection were performed on cadaver wrists. RESULTS: There was a clear, statistically significant correlation between arthrosis of the proximal pole of the hamate and the presence of a medial facet on the lunate. CONCLUSION: Arthrosis of the proximal pole of the hamate is correlated with the presence of a type II lunate. Level of Evidence III, Study of nonconsecutive patients; without consistently applied reference ''gold'' standard.
Keywords : Wrist Joint; Osteoarthritis; Wrist joint.


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Spain and Italy are predicted to drag Europe into recession, both the Dow Jones and S&P 500 continue to fall and Facebook has acquired photo-sharing app Instagram for $1 billion.
Foreign-exchange forecasters have told Bloomberg that the euro is expected to drop 5% to $1.24 by the end of 2012. Spending cuts from Spain and Italy are predicted to "reignite debt turmoil and drag the region into recession."
US equity markets extended losses to a fourth day yesterday following U.S. non-farm payrolls data which failed to meet expectations, reports Reuters. Both the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 continue to fall as concerns over the stability of a recovery in the US rise.
Facebook announced that it will acquire photo-sharing app Instagram for an astonishing $1 billion (£629m), reports the BBC. Instagram was launched less than two years ago and claims to have 30m user per day.


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Rafael Martinez wrote: > I am wondering why the time reported by \timing in psql is not the same > as the time reported by duration in the log file when log_duration or > log_min_duration_statement are on?. I can not find any information about > this in the documentation. \timing measures the time on the client, while the log contains the duration on the server side. The client time includes the overhead for transferring data to and from the server. Yours, Laurenz Albe
Next: From: Gnanakumar Date: 2012-03-22 07:27:13 Subject: Write workload is causing severe slowdown in Production Previous: From: Robert Haas Date: 2012-03-21 14:32:26 Subject: Re: set autovacuum=off


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|Sport, 1 pitch, 120'
|YDS: 5.11d French: 7a Ewbanks: 24 UIAA: VIII ZA: 25 British: E5 6a [details]
|Kent Wheeler 1995
|Page Views:
|Submitted By:
|Dave Budge on Nov 9, 2007
|Gate Buttress Area Recreational Lease: Climbs on Church Buttress above vault remain closed MORE INFO >>>
|Comments on No Jive Arete
|Add Comment
|Show which comments —
By tenesmus
Nov 11, 2007
|I noticed that too - about a year and a half ago. I doubt it gets led very often if no one has replaced it in that long time. Kinda hard where the bolt is missing.
By Dave Budge
From: South Slope of the Hindu Kush
Nov 12, 2007
|I'll talk to Kent and take care of it.
By mountainsense
Jun 27, 2009
|i think the "carrot" adds character to this superb line. what a route!
By bheller
From: SL UT
Apr 8, 2010
rating: 5.12c 7b+ 27 IX- 27 E6 6b
|I'm just gonna say it...this route is 12c, highly technical, and sports multiple cruxes. The true crux comes above the first bolt-a thin, ugly V5. After that it sports multiple 12- cruxes. For me it was a time warp of insecure, difficult climbing. One bolt is still missing a hangar, and the stud sticks out at the point where this route comes closest to Hand Jive crack(about half the way up). Comparatively, the climbing isn't hard where the hangar is gone. There are chains at the top, about 11 bolts, and 70m rope puts you down best. This route is mentally taxing, and after you've led it, its strangely difficult to decide whether it was "fun" or not...
By mountainsense
Apr 13, 2010
|I'd have to agree with Brad. The No Jive Arete is hard--really, really hard. The route was hand-drilled on the lead with no hooks, a Kent Wheeler testpiece. This year's the year I'll finally send! S
By nooky brown
Apr 14, 2010
Yeah right, whatever.
Its only 12a max you gumbys.
Stellar route.
By Boissal
From: Small Lake, UT
May 2, 2011
|For what it's worth we ran into Kent up there this weekend and in between bouts of heckling his partners he told me 11c was the hardest he could climb back then (wink wink) so that's what he graded it. He also mentioned that some holds might have broken then floated the thing with the exception of the nonsensical moves around the 1st bolt.
By Ben Folsom
May 3, 2011
rating: 5.11d 7a 24 VIII 25 E5 6a
|no way this is 12c...and it is fun!
By Skat B
From: Down Rodeo
Jul 15, 2012
|bolt hanger missing halfway up arete
By Ryan Arnold
Apr 30, 2014
rating: 5.12a 7a+ 25 VIII+ 25 E5 6a
|WOW! I only toproped it but it sure left an impression. Multiple 11++ sections of steep, thin slab. Probably 3 positive holds on the entire 35 meter route. Top is slightly easier than bottom but still extremely sustained. I think this would be a great route to work if you're building up to Cymbals in the Sun. Bolt hanger still missing halfway up... quite close to hand jive crack.