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When the transistor was invented in 1947 at Bell Labs, few could have foreseen the future impact of the device. This fundamental development in science and engineering was critical to the invention of handheld radios, led to modern computing, and enabled technologies such as the smartphone. This is one of the values of basic research.
In a similar fashion, a branch of fundamental physics research, the study of so-called correlated electrons, focuses on interactions between the electrons in metals.
The key to understanding these interactions and the unique properties they produce—information that could lead to the development of novel materials and technologies—is to experimentally verify their presence and physically probe the interactions at microscopic scales. To this end, Caltech's Thomas F. Rosenbaum and colleagues at the University of Chicago and the Argonne National Laboratory recently used a synchrotron X-ray source to investigate the existence of instabilities in the arrangement of the electrons in metals as a function of both temperature and pressure, and to pinpoint, for the first time, how those instabilities arise. Rosenbaum, professor of physics and holder of the Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair, is the corresponding author on the paper that was published on July 27, 2015, in the journal Nature Physics.
"We spent over 10 years developing the instrumentation to perform these studies," says Yejun Feng of Argonne National Laboratory, a coauthor of the paper. "We now have a very unique capability that's due to the long-term relationship between Dr. Rosenbaum and the facilities at the Argonne National Laboratory."
Within atoms, electrons are organized into orbital shells and subshells. Although they are often depicted as physical entities, orbitals actually represent probability distributions—regions of space where electrons have a certain likelihood of being found in a particular element at a particular energy. The characteristic electron configuration of a given element explains that element's peculiar properties.
The work in correlated electrons looks at a subset of electrons. Metals, as an example, have an unfilled outermost orbital and electrons are free to move from atom to atom. Thus, metals are good electrical conductors. When metal atoms are tightly packed into lattices (or crystals) these electrons mingle together into a "sea" of electrons. The metallic element mercury is liquid at room temperature, in part due to its electron configuration, and shows very little resistance to electric current due to its electron configuration. At 4 degrees above absolute zero (just barely above -460 degrees Fahrenheit), mercury's electron arrangement and other properties create communal electrons that show no resistance to electric current, a state known as superconductivity.
Mercury's superconductivity and similar phenomena are due to the existence of many pairs of correlated electrons. In superconducting states, correlated electrons pair to form an elastic, collective state through an excitation in the crystal lattice known as a phonon (specifically, a periodic, collective excitation of the atoms). The electrons are then able to move cooperatively in the elastic state through a material without energy loss.
Electrons in crystals can interact in many ways with the periodic structure of the underlying atoms. Sometimes the electrons modulate themselves periodically in space. The question then arises as to whether this "charge order" derives from the interactions of the electrons with the atoms, a theory first proposed more than 60 years ago, or solely from interactions among the sea of electrons themselves. This question was the focus of the Nature Physics study. Electrons also behave as microscopic magnets and can demonstrate "spin order," which raises similar questions about the origin of the local magnetism.
To see where the charge order arises, the researchers turned to the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne. The Photon Source is a synchrotron (a relative of the cyclotron, commonly known as an "atom-smasher"). These machines generate intense X-ray beams that can be used for X-ray diffraction studies. In X-ray diffraction, the patterns of scattered X-rays are used to provide information about repeating structures with wavelengths at the atomic scale.
In the experiment, the researchers used the X-ray beams to investigate charge-order effects in two metals, chromium and niobium diselenide, at pressures ranging from 0 (a vacuum) to 100 kilobar (100,000 times normal atmospheric pressure) and at temperatures ranging from 3 to 300 K (or -454 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit). Niobium diselenide was selected because it has a high degree of charge order, while chromium, in contrast, has a high degree of spin order.
The researchers found that there is a simple correlation between pressure and how the communal electrons organize themselves within the crystal. Materials with completely different types of crystal structures all behave similarly. "These sorts of charge- and spin-order phenomena have been known for a long time, but their underlying mechanisms have not been understood until now," says Rosenbaum.
Paper coauthors Jasper van Wezel, formerly of Argonne National Laboratory and presently of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Amsterdam, and Peter Littlewood, a professor at the University of Chicago and the director of Argonne National Laboratory, helped to provide a new theoretical perspective to explain the experimental results.
Rosenbaum and colleagues point out that there are no immediate practical applications of the results. However, Rosenbaum notes, "This work should have applicability to new materials as well as to the kind of interactions that are useful to create magnetic states that are often the antecedents of superconductors," says Rosenbaum.
"The attraction of this sort of research is to ask fundamental questions that are ubiquitous in nature," says Rosenbaum. "I think it is very much a Caltech tradition to try to develop new tools that can interrogate materials in ways that illuminate the fundamental aspects of the problem." He adds, "There is real power in being able to have general microscopic insights to develop the most powerful breakthroughs."
The coauthors on the paper, titled "Itinerant density wave instabilities at classical and quantum critical points," are Yejun Feng and Peter Littlewood of the Argonne National Laboratory, Jasper van Wezel of the University of Amsterdam, Daniel M. Silevitch and Jiyang Wang of the University of Chicago, and Felix Flicker of the University of Bristol. Work performed at the Argonne National Laboratory was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. Work performed at the University of Chicago was funded by the National Science Foundation. Additional support was received from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.
A team of astronomers led by Caltech has discovered a giant swirling disk of gas 10 billion light-years away—a galaxy-in-the-making that is actively being fed cool primordial gas tracing back to the Big Bang. Using the Caltech-designed and -built Cosmic Web Imager (CWI) at Palomar Observatory, the researchers were able to image the protogalaxy and found that it is connected to a filament of the intergalactic medium, the cosmic web made of diffuse gas that crisscrosses between galaxies and extends throughout the universe.
The finding provides the strongest observational support yet for what is known as the cold-flow model of galaxy formation. That model holds that in the early universe, relatively cool gas funneled down from the cosmic web directly into galaxies, fueling rapid star formation.
A paper describing the finding and how CWI made it possible currently appears online and will be published in the August 13 print issue of the journal Nature.
"This is the first smoking-gun evidence for how galaxies form," says Christopher Martin, professor of physics at Caltech, principal investigator on CWI, and lead author of the new paper. "Even as simulations and theoretical work have increasingly stressed the importance of cold flows, observational evidence of their role in galaxy formation has been lacking."
The protogalactic disk the team has identified is about 400,000 light-years across—about four times larger in diameter than our Milky Way. It is situated in a system dominated by two quasars, the closest of which, UM287, is positioned so that its emission is beamed like a flashlight, helping to illuminate the cosmic web filament feeding gas into the spiraling protogalaxy.
Last year, Sebastiano Cantalupo, then of UC Santa Cruz (now of ETH Zurich) and his colleagues published a paper, also in Nature, announcing the discovery of what they thought was a large filament next to UM287. The feature they observed was brighter than it should have been if indeed it was only a filament. It seemed that there must be something else there.
In September 2014, Martin and his colleagues, including Cantalupo, decided to follow up with observations of the system with CWI. As an integral field spectrograph, CWI allowed the team to collect images around UM287 at hundreds of different wavelengths simultaneously, revealing details of the system's composition, mass distribution, and velocity.
Martin and his colleagues focused on a range of wavelengths around an emission line in the ultraviolet known as the Lyman-alpha line. That line, a fingerprint of atomic hydrogen gas, is commonly used by astronomers as a tracer of primordial matter.
The researchers collected a series of spectral images that combined to form a multiwavelength map of a patch of sky around the two quasars. This data delineated areas where gas is emitting in the Lyman-alpha line, and indicated the velocities with which this gas is moving with respect to the center of the system.
"The images plainly show that there is a rotating disk—you can see that one side is moving closer to us and the other is moving away. And you can also see that there's a filament that extends beyond the disk," Martin says. Their measurements indicate that the disk is rotating at a rate of about 400 kilometers per second, somewhat faster than the Milky Way's own rate of rotation.
"The filament has a more or less constant velocity. It is basically funneling gas into the disk at a fixed rate," says Matt Matuszewski (PhD '12), an instrument scientist in Martin's group and coauthor on the paper. "Once the gas merges with the disk inside the dark-matter halo, it is pulled around by the rotating gas and dark matter in the halo." Dark matter is a form of matter that we cannot see that is believed to make up about 27 percent of the universe. Galaxies are thought to form within extended halos of dark matter.
The new observations and measurements provide the first direct confirmation of the so-called cold-flow model of galaxy formation.
Hotly debated since 2003, that model stands in contrast to the standard, older view of galaxy formation. The standard model said that when dark-matter halos collapse, they pull a great deal of normal matter in the form of gas along with them, heating it to extremely high temperatures. The gas then cools very slowly, providing a steady but slow supply of cold gas that can form stars in growing galaxies.
That model seemed fine until 1996, when Chuck Steidel, Caltech's Lee A. DuBridge Professor of Astronomy, discovered a distant population of galaxies producing stars at a very high rate only two billion years after the Big Bang. The standard model cannot provide the prodigious fuel supply for these rapidly forming galaxies.
The cold-flow model provided a potential solution. Theorists suggested that relatively cool gas, delivered by filaments of the cosmic web, streams directly into protogalaxies. There, it can quickly condense to form stars. Simulations show that as the gas falls in, it contains tremendous amounts of angular momentum, or spin, and forms extended rotating disks.
"That's a direct prediction of the cold-flow model, and this is exactly what we see—an extended disk with lots of angular momentum that we can measure," says Martin.
Phil Hopkins, assistant professor of theoretical astrophysics at Caltech, who was not involved in the study, finds the new discovery "very compelling."
"As a proof that a protogalaxy connected to the cosmic web exists and that we can detect it, this is really exciting," he says. "Of course, now you want to know a million things about what the gas falling into galaxies is actually doing, so I'm sure there is going to be more follow up."
Martin notes that the team has already identified two additional disks that appear to be receiving gas directly from filaments of the cosmic web in the same way.
Additional Caltech authors on the paper, "A giant protogalactic disk linked to the cosmic web," are principal research scientist Patrick Morrissey, research scientist James D. Neill, and instrument scientist Anna Moore from the Caltech Optical Observatories. J. Xavier Prochaska of UC Santa Cruz and former Caltech graduate student Daphne Chang, who is deceased, are also coauthors. The Cosmic Web Imager was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and Caltech.
Caltech professors Alexei Kitaev and Christopher Umans have been named Simons Investigators. These appointments are given annually to "support outstanding scientists in their most productive years, when they are establishing creative new research directions." Investigators receive $100,000 annually for five years.
Alexei Kitaev, the Ronald and Maxine Linde Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, studies quantum computation and related areas of theoretical physics. He was recognized for helping to found the field of topological quantum computing, which involves theoretical computing devices that use a type of elementary particle called an anyon to do computations.
"The central idea is to protect quantum information from errors by encoding it in a collective state of many electrons called a 'topological quantum phase,'" Kitaev says. "I proposed a scheme whereby a piece of quantum information is stored in a pair of particles called Majorana modes at the ends of a microscopic wire. This idea has been elaborated by other physicists and is now being tested experimentally."
In 2012, Kitaev received the $3 million Fundamental Physics Prize for his work developing algorithms and theories to enable quantum computing. A member of Caltech's Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, he was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2008.
Chris Umans, a professor of computer science, studies complexity theory, a field that aims to determine rigorously the possibilities and limitations of computation. "Computational complexity attempts to answer the question: 'What is computationally feasible given limited computational resources?'" he says.
Umans was noted by the Simons Foundation for his work on matrix multiplication, a prominent problem that involves the devising of optimal algorithms for multiplying two n-by-n matrices. The citation also noted his development of a "novel algorithm for polynomial factorization."
"The Simons award was a complete surprise! I am honored to be recognized in this way and grateful to the Simons Foundation for their support," he says. "Long-term support like this allows researchers to really focus on difficult, long-term problems, and this is incredibly valuable, especially in these fields that are filled with deep, foundational open questions."
Umans also received an NSF CAREER award in 2004 and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2005.
The Simons Foundation was founded in 1994 by Jim and Marilyn Simons to advance research in mathematics and the basic sciences. In 2012, the Simons Foundation awarded fellowships to Hirosi Ooguri, the Fred Kavli Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics and Director of Caltech's Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, and former professor of astrophysics Christopher Hirata (BS '01), now a professor of physics at Ohio State University.
Brown dwarfs are relatively cool, dim objects that are difficult to detect and hard to classify. They are too massive to be planets, yet possess some planetlike characteristics; they are too small to sustain hydrogen fusion reactions at their cores, a defining characteristic of stars, yet they have starlike attributes.
By observing a brown dwarf 20 light-years away using both radio and optical telescopes, a team led by Gregg Hallinan, assistant professor of astronomy at Caltech, has found another feature that makes these so-called failed stars more like supersized planets—they host powerful auroras near their magnetic poles.
The findings appear in the July 30 issue of the journal Nature.
"We're finding that brown dwarfs are not like small stars in terms of their magnetic activity; they're like giant planets with hugely powerful auroras," says Hallinan. "If you were able to stand on the surface of the brown dwarf we observed—something you could never do because of its extremely hot temperatures and crushing surface gravity—you would sometimes be treated to a fantastic light show courtesy of auroras hundreds of thousands of times more powerful than any detected in our solar system."
In the early 2000s, astronomers began finding that brown dwarfs emit radio waves. At first, everyone assumed that the brown dwarfs were creating the radio waves in basically the same way that stars do—through the action of an extremely hot atmosphere, or corona, heated by magnetic activity near the object's surface. But brown dwarfs do not generate large flares and charged-particle emissions in the way that our sun and other stars do, so the radio emissions were surprising.
While in graduate school, in 2006, Hallinan discovered that brown dwarfs can actually pulse at radio frequencies. "We see a similar pulsing phenomenon from planets in our solar system," says Hallinan, "and that radio emission is actually due to auroras." Since then he has wondered if the radio emissions seen on brown dwarfs might be caused by auroras.
Auroral displays result when charged particles, carried by the stellar wind for example, manage to enter a planet's magnetosphere, the region where such charged particles are influenced by the planet's magnetic field. Once within the magnetosphere, those particles get accelerated along the planet's magnetic field lines to the planet's poles, where they collide with gas atoms in the atmosphere and produce the bright emissions associated with auroras.
Following his hunch, Hallinan and his colleagues conducted an extensive observation campaign of a brown dwarf called LSRJ 1835+3259, using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array (VLA), the most powerful radio telescope in the world, as well as optical instruments that included Palomar's Hale Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory's telescopes.
Using the VLA they detected a bright pulse of radio waves that appeared as the brown dwarf rotated around. The object rotates every 2.84 hours, so the researchers were able to watch nearly three full rotations over the course of a single night.
Next, the astronomers used the Hale Telescope to observe that the brown dwarf varied optically on the same period as the radio pulses. Focusing on one of the spectral lines associated with excited hydrogen—the h-alpha emission line—they found that the object's brightness varied periodically.
Finally, Hallinan and his colleagues used the Keck telescopes to measure precisely the brightness of the brown dwarf over time—no simple feat given that these objects are many thousands of times fainter than our own sun. Hallinan and his team were able to establish that this hydrogen emission is a signature of auroras near the surface of the brown dwarf.
"As the electrons spiral down toward the atmosphere, they produce radio emissions, and then when they hit the atmosphere, they excite hydrogen in a process that occurs at Earth and other planets, albeit tens of thousands of times more intense," explains Hallinan. "We now know that this kind of auroral behavior is extending all the way from planets up to brown dwarfs."
In the case of brown dwarfs, charged particles cannot be driven into their magnetosphere by a stellar wind, as there is no stellar wind to do so. Hallinan says that some other source, such as an orbiting planet moving through the brown dwarf's magnetosphere, may be generating a current and producing the auroras. "But until we map the aurora accurately, we won't be able to say where it's coming from," he says.
He notes that brown dwarfs offer a convenient stepping stone to studying exoplanets, planets orbiting stars other than our own sun. "For the coolest brown dwarfs we've discovered, their atmosphere is pretty similar to what we would expect for many exoplanets, and you can actually look at a brown dwarf and study its atmosphere without having a star nearby that's a factor of a million times brighter obscuring your observations," says Hallinan.
Just as he has used measurements of radio waves to determine the strength of magnetic fields around brown dwarfs, he hopes to use the low-frequency radio observations of the newly built Owens Valley Long Wavelength Array to measure the magnetic fields of exoplanets. "That could be particularly interesting because whether or not a planet has a magnetic field may be an important factor in habitability," he says. "I'm trying to build a picture of magnetic field strength and topology and the role that magnetic fields play as we go from stars to brown dwarfs and eventually right down into the planetary regime."
The work, "Magnetospherically driven optical and radio aurorae at the end of the main sequence," was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation. Additional authors on the paper include Caltech senior postdoctoral scholar Stephen Bourke, Caltech graduate students Sebastian Pineda and Melodie Kao, Leon Harding of JPL, Stuart Littlefair of the University of Sheffield, Garret Cotter of the University of Oxford, Ray Butler of National University of Ireland, Galway, Aaron Golden of Yeshiva University, Gibor Basri of UC Berkeley, Gerry Doyle of Armagh Observatory, Svetlana Berdyugina of the Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics, Alexey Kuznetsov of the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics in Irkutsk, Russia, Michael Rupen of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and Antoaneta Antonova of Sofia University.
Trustees Gordon (PhD '54) and Betty Moore have pledged $100 million to Caltech, the second-largest single contribution in the Institute's history. With this gift, they have created a permanent endowment and entrusted the choice of how to direct the funds to the Institute's leadership—providing lasting resources coupled with uncommon freedom.
"Those within the Institute have a much better view of what the highest priorities are than we could have," Intel Corporation cofounder Gordon Moore explains. "We'd rather turn the job of deciding where to use resources over to Caltech than try to dictate it from outside."
Applying the Moores' donation in a way that will strengthen the Institute for generations to come, Caltech's president and provost have decided to dedicate the funds to fellowships for graduate students.
"Gordon and Betty Moore's incredibly generous gift will have a transformative effect on Caltech," says President Thomas F. Rosenbaum, holder of the Institute's Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of physics. "Our ultimate goal is to provide fellowships for every graduate student at Caltech, to free these remarkable young scholars to pursue their interests wherever they may lead, independent of the vicissitudes of federal funding. The fellowships created by the Moores' gift will help make the Institute the destination of choice for the most original and creative scholars, students and faculty members alike."
Further multiplying the impact of the Moores' contribution, the Institute has established a program that will inspire others to contribute as well. The Gordon and Betty Moore Graduate Fellowship Match will provide one additional dollar for every two dollars pledged to endow Institute-wide fellowships. In this way, the Moores' $100 million commitment will increase fellowship support for Caltech by a total of $300 million.
Says Provost Edward M. Stolper, the Carl and Shirley Larson Provostial Chair and William E. Leonhard Professor of Geology: "Investigators across campus work with outstanding graduate students to advance discovery and to train the next generation of teachers and researchers. By supporting these students, the Moore Match will stimulate creativity and excellence in perpetuity all across Caltech. We are grateful to Gordon and Betty for allowing us the flexibility to devote their gift to this crucial priority."
The Moores describe Caltech as a one-of-a-kind institution in its ability to train budding scientists and engineers and conduct high-risk research with world-changing results—and they are committed to helping the Institute maintain that ability far into the future.
"We appreciate being able to support the best science," Gordon Moore says, "and that's something that supporting Caltech lets us do."
The couple's extraordinary philanthropy already has motivated other benefactors to follow their example, notes David L. Lee, chair of the Caltech Board of Trustees.
"The decision that Gordon and Betty made—to give such a remarkable gift, to make it perpetual through an endowment, and to remove any restrictions as to how it can be used—creates a tremendous ripple effect," Lee says. "Others have seen the Moores' confidence in Caltech and have made commitments of their own. We thank the Moores for their leadership."
The Moores consider their gift a high-leverage way of fostering scientific research at a place that is close to their hearts. Before he went on to cofound Intel, Gordon Moore earned a PhD in chemistry from Caltech.
"It's been a long-term association that has served me well," he says.
Joining him in Pasadena just a day after the two were married, Betty Moore became active in the campus community as well. A graduate of San Jose State College's journalism program, she secured a job at the Ford Foundation's new Pasadena headquarters and also made time to come to campus to participate in community activities, including the Chem Wives social club.
"We started out at Caltech," she recalls. "I had a feeling that it was home away from home. It gives you a down-home feeling when you're young and just taking off from family. You need that connection somehow."
After earning his PhD from Caltech in 1954, Gordon Moore took a position conducting basic research at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. Fourteen years and two jobs later, he and his colleague Robert Noyce cofounded Intel Corp. Moore served as executive vice president of the company until 1975, when he took the helm. Under his leadership—as chief executive officer (1975 to 1987) and chairman of the board (1987 to 1997)—Intel grew from a Mountain View-based startup to a giant of Silicon Valley, worth more than $140 billion today.
Moore is widely known for "Moore's Law," his 1965 prediction that the number of transistors that can fit on a chip would double every year. Still relevant 50 years later, this principle pushed Moore and his company—and the tech industry as a whole—to produce continually more powerful and cheaper semiconductor chips.
Gordon Moore joined the Caltech Board of Trustees in 1983 and served as chair from 1993 to 2000. That same year, he and his wife established the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, an organization dedicated to creating positive outcomes for future generations in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the world.
Among numerous other honors, Gordon Moore is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and a recipient of the National Medal of Technology and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Gordon and Betty Moore Graduate Fellowship Match is available for new gifts and pledges to endow graduate fellowships. For more information about the match and how to support graduate education at Caltech, please email email@example.com or call (626) 395-4863.
On the steep, tea-covered hillsides of Ilam in eastern Nepal, where 25 percent of households live below the poverty level and electricity is scarce, clean running water is scarcer still. What comes out of the region's centralized distribution systems is unfiltered, untreated, and teeming with nitrates, viruses, and E. coli. Purifying it is the consumer's responsibility.
But wood and yak dung, the only available fuels for boiling water, are precious, and purification tablets impart an unpleasant chlorine taste. The result? During the rainy season, local hospitals overflow with typhoid and gastrointestinal cases, mostly involving children and tainted runoff.
That may change, thanks to a gravity flow and slow-sand filtration system designed by Caltech undergraduates. They represent EWB-Caltech, one of the newest chapters of Engineers Without Borders USA, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) whose mission is to design and implement sustainable engineering projects in underprivileged communities.
Founded in 2012 by Sarah Wright (BS '13, bioengineering), EWB-Caltech already has about 30 members. This summer, a half dozen of the chapter's members are traveling to Ilam, where they are staying with local villagers while helping to oversee and implement the system's construction. The hillside will be partly excavated and then reconstructed. Layers of rock, gravel, sand, polyethylene sheeting, and soil will soak up rainfall, filtering and purifying it as it trickles into underground water. Pipes tapping into the underground water will run downhill to a small communal enclosure made of poured concrete, providing a reliable supply of clean water for about 100 households, with another 200 indirectly affected.
The students will not be working alone, says their mentor, environmental engineering consultant Gordon Treweek (MS '71, PhD '75) who is partnering with Caltech engineering students for the first time. "All EWB projects are community-driven, with the local workforce providing much of the labor. And we've received tremendous logistical support, including interpreters, from the Namsaling Community Development Center, an NGO in Ilam that had previously worked with an EWB chapter from the University of Colorado, Boulder."
According to EWB requirements the Nepalese must contribute 5 percent of the project's budget. EWB-Caltech copresidents Jihoon Lee (a senior in bioengineering) and Nauman Javed (a senior in physics) acknowledge that successfully coming up with the remainder—over $20,000—involved nearly continuous fund-raising. "We've been applying for grants, soliciting private donations, partnering with companies, especially water-related and environmental corporations, and we held a benefit dinner in January that was largely attended by Caltech faculty and friends," says Lee.
Both a 10-day on-site assessment trip last summer and this summer's trip were covered by individual donations and grants. The assessment trip took Treweek, Javed, and fellow Caltech senior Webster Guan (chemical engineering) to Ilam to meet with the NGO; to survey the local community of about 100 families to ascertain their needs and willingness to assist in the construction and ongoing maintenance of the water tap stand; and to gather predesign data for planning construction and estimating costs.
"The support we have received from Caltech alumni directly and through their networks of contacts at Northrop Grumman and Boeing has been invaluable in helping to keep this project moving forward," Treweek says.
After the assessment trip, the students spent the 2014–15 school year preparing detailed engineering documents using computer-aided design techniques. In this, they were assisted by the water-resource engineering firms Carollo Engineers and Montgomery Watson Harza, whose pro bono involvement did not surprise Treweek. "Consulting engineering firms frequently donate resources for projects like this," he says. "It's socially responsible, and it gives them a chance to observe future engineers addressing the four traditional phases of engineering: planning, design, fund-raising, and construction."
With preventable infectious diseases a leading component of Ilam's one-in-three infant mortality rate, the project includes a public-education component. "Besides training the local villagers who will maintain our spring-water source protection system," says Javed, "we plan to visit local schools, demonstrate how the system works, teach a little germ theory."
But no amount of careful planning can guarantee success. Similar projects have failed due to engineering problems, misaligned long-term governance strategies, eleventh-hour reprioritizations by the community, even simple miscommunication. "We've drafted plenty of contingency plans," affirms Lee, "with great support from EWB-USA. Their stringent review procedures covered every engineering and social aspect of the project, and they've given us detailed feedback on our drawings, schedules, and rationales."
After the implementation phase—which ends just one week before classes resume back in Pasadena—EWB-Caltech will continue to monitor the site for five to six years. By then the current members will have moved on and a new group of student leaders will have taken over this project. But for now, they are spending their summer trying to build a better world, drop by drop.
July 14 marks 50 years of visual reconnaissance of the solar system by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), beginning with Mariner 4's flyby of Mars in 1965.
Among JPL's first planetary efforts, Mariners 3 and 4 (known collectively as "Mariner Mars") were planned and executed by a group of pioneering scientists at Caltech in partnership with JPL. NASA was only 4 years old when the first Mars flyby was approved in 1962, but the core science team had been working together at Caltech for many years. The team included Caltech faculty Robert Sharp (after whom Mount Sharp, the main target of the Mars rover Curiosity, is named) and Gerry Neugebauer, professor of geology and of professor of physics, respectively; Robert Leighton and H. Victor Neher, professors of physics; and Bill Pickering, professor of electrical engineering, who was the director of JPL from 1954–1976. Rounding out the Caltech contingent was a young Bruce Murray, a new addition to the geology faculty, who would follow Pickering as JPL director in 1976.
"The Mariner missions marked the beginning of planetary geology, led by researchers at Caltech including Bruce Murray and Robert Sharp," said John Grotzinger, the Fletcher Jones Professor of Geology and chair of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. "These early flyby missions showed the enormous potential of Mars to provide insight into the evolution of a close cousin to Earth and stimulated the creation of a program dedicated to iterative exploration involving orbiters, landers, and rovers."
By today's standards, Mariner Mars was a virtual leap into the unknown. NASA and JPL had little spaceflight experience to guide them. There had been just one successful planetary mission—Mariner 2's journey past Venus in 1962—to build upon. Sending spacecraft to other planets was still a new endeavor.
The Mariner Mars spacecraft were originally designed without cameras. Neugebauer, Murray, and Leighton felt that a lot of science questions could be answered via images from this close encounter with Mars. As it turned out, sending back photos of the planet that had so long captured the imaginations of millions had the added benefit of making the Mars flyby more accessible to the public.
Mariner 3 launched on November 5, 1964. The Atlas rocket that boosted it clear of the atmosphere functioned perfectly (not always the case in the early years of spaceflight), but the shroud enclosing the payload failed to fully open and the spacecraft, unable to collect sunlight on its solar panels, ceased to function after about nine hours of flight.
Mariner 4 launched three weeks later on November 28 with a redesigned shroud. The probe deployed as planned and began its journey to Mars. But there was still drama in store for the mission. Within the first hour of the flight, the rocket's upper stage had pushed the spacecraft out of Earth orbit, and the solar panels had deployed. Then the guidance system acquired a lock on the sun, but a second object was needed to guide the spacecraft. This depended on a photocell finding the bright star Canopus, which was attempted about 15 hours later. During these first attempts, however, the primitive onboard electronics erroneously identified other stars of similar brightness.
Controllers managed to solve this problem but over the next few weeks realized that a small cloud of dust and paint flecks, ejected when Mariner 4 deployed, was traveling along with the spacecraft and interfering with the tracking of Canopus. A tiny paint chip, if close enough to the star tracker, could mimic the star. After more corrective action, Canopus was reacquired and Mariner's journey continued largely without incident. This star-tracking technology, along with many other design features of the spacecraft, has been used in every interplanetary mission JPL has flown since.
At the time, what was known about Mars had been learned from Earth-based telescopes. The images were fuzzy and indistinct—at its closest, Mars is still about 35 million miles distant. Scientific measurements derived from visual observations of the planet were inexact. While ideas about the true nature of Mars evolved throughout the first half of the 20th century, in 1965 nobody could say with any confidence how dense the martian atmosphere was or determine its exact composition. Telescopic surveys had recorded a visual event called the "wave of darkening," which some scientists theorized could be plant life blooming and perishing as the harsh martian seasons changed. A few of them still thought of Mars as a place capable of supporting advanced life, although most thought it unlikely. However, there was no conclusive evidence for either scenario.
So, as Mariner 4 flew past Mars, much was at stake, both for the scientific community and a curious general public. Were there canals or channels on the surface, as some astronomers had reported? Would we find advanced life forms or vast collections of plant life? Would there be liquid water on the surface?
Just over seven months after launch, the encounter with Mars was imminent. On July 14, 1965, Mariner's science instruments were activated. These included a magnetometer to measure magnetic fields, a Geiger counter to measure radiation, a cosmic ray telescope, a cosmic dust detector, and the television camera.
About seven hours before the encounter, the TV camera began acquiring images. After the probe passed Mars, an onboard data recorder—which used a 330-foot endless loop of magnetic tape to store still pictures—initiated playback of the raw images to Earth, transmitting them twice for certainty. Each image took 10 hours to transmit.
The 22 images sent by Mariner 4 appeared conclusive. Although they were low-resolution and black-and-white, they indicated that Mars was not a place likely to be friendly to life. It was a cold, dry desert, covered with so many craters as to strongly resemble Earth's moon. The atmospheric density was about one-thousandth that of Earth, and no liquid water was apparent on the surface.
When discussing the mission during an interview at Caltech in 1977, Leighton recalled viewing the first images at JPL. "If someone had asked 'What do you expect to see?' we would have said 'craters'…[yet] the fact that craters were there, and a predominant land form, was somehow surprising."
Leighton also recalled a letter he received from, of all people, a dairy farmer. It read, "I'm not very close to your world, but I really appreciate what you are doing. Keep it going." Leighton said of the sentiment, "A letter from a milkman…I thought that was kind of nice."
After its voyage past Mars, Mariner 4 maintained intermittent communication with JPL and returned data about the interplanetary environment for two more years. But by the end of 1967, the spacecraft had suffered tens of thousands of micrometeoroid impacts and was out of the nitrogen gas it used for maneuvering. The mission officially ended on December 21.
"Mariner 4 defined and pioneered the systems and technologies needed for a truly interplanetary spacecraft," says Rob Manning (BS '81), JPL's chief engineer for the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator and formerly chief engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory. "All U.S. interplanetary missions that have followed were directly derived from the architecture and innovations that engineers behind Mariner invented. We stand on the shoulders of giants."
Fast-moving magnetic waves emanating from a distant supermassive black hole undulate like a whip whose handle is being shaken by a giant hand, according to a new study involving Caltech scientists, which used data from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) to explore the galaxy-black hole system known as BL Lacertae (BL Lac) in high resolution.
The team's findings, detailed in the April 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal, mark the first time so-called Alfvén (pronounced Alf-vain) waves have been identified in a black hole system.
Alfvén waves are generated when magnetic field lines, such as those coming from the sun or the disk around a black hole, interact with charged particles, or ions, and become twisted, and in the case of BL Lac and sometimes for the sun, are coiled into a helix. In the case of BL Lac, the ions are in the form of particle jets that are flung from opposite sides of the black hole at near light speed.
"Imagine running a water hose through a slinky that has been stretched taut," says first author Marshall Cohen, professor emeritus of astronomy at Caltech. "A sideways disturbance at one end of the slinky will create a wave that travels to the other end, and if the slinky sways to and fro, the hose running through its center has no choice but to move with it."
A similar thing is happening in BL Lac, Cohen says. The Alfvén waves are analogous to the propagating transverse motions of the slinky, and as the waves propagate along the magnetic field lines, they can cause the field lines—and the particle jets encompassed by the field lines—to move as well.
It's common for black hole particle jets to bend—and some even swing back and forth. But those movements typically take place on timescales of thousands or millions of years. "What we see is happening on a timescale of weeks," Cohen says. "We're taking pictures once a month, and the position of the waves is different each month."
Interestingly, from the vantage of astronomers on Earth, the Alfvén waves emanating from BL Lac appear to be traveling about five times faster than the speed of light. "The waves only appear to be superluminal, or moving faster than light," Cohen says. "The high speed is an optical illusion resulting from the fact that the waves are traveling very close to, but below, the speed of light, and are passing just to the side of our line of sight."
Co-author David Meier, a visiting associate in astronomy and now-retired astrophysicist from JPL, added, "By analyzing these waves, we are able to determine the internal properties of the jet, and this will help us ultimately understand how jets are produced by black holes."
Other authors on the paper, "Studies of the Jet in BL Lacertae II Superluminal Alfvén Waves," include Talvikki Hovatta, a former Caltech postdoctoral scholar; as well as scientists from the University of Cologne and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany; the Isaac Newton Institute of Chile; Aalto University in Finland; the Astro Space Center of Lebedev Physical Institute, the Pulkovo Observatory, and the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Russia. Purdue University, Denison University, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were also involved in the study.
X-rays light up the surface of our sun in a bouquet of colors in this new image containing data from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. The high-energy X-rays seen by NuSTAR are shown in blue, while green represents lower-energy X-rays from the X-ray Telescope instrument on the Hinode spacecraft, named after the Japanese word for sunrise. The yellow and green colors show ultraviolet light from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.
NuSTAR usually spends its time investigating the mysteries of black holes, supernovae, and other high-energy objects in space. But it can also look closer to home to study our sun.
"What's great about NuSTAR is that the telescope is so versatile that we can hunt black holes millions of light-years away and we can also learn something fundamental about the star in our own backyard," said Brian Grefenstette, a Caltech research scientist and an astronomer on the NuSTAR team.
NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.
Read the full story from JPL News
Joseph Shepherd (PhD '81), the C. L. "Kelly" Johnson Professor of Aeronautics and professor of mechanical engineering, is leaving his post as dean of graduate studies to succeed Anneila Sargent (MS '67, PhD '78), the Ira S. Bowen Professor of Astronomy, as vice president for student affairs. Shepherd's new role is effective September 15.
Sargent, who served the campus as the leader of student affairs the last eight years, announced in March that she was leaving the post to return to research and teaching full time. Shepherd, who joined the Caltech faculty in 1993, has served the last six years as the dean of graduate studies.
We recently sat down with Shepherd to talk about his past role and his new one, his strengths and goals, and his experience at Caltech.
Q: What does the vice president for student affairs do?
A: Student Affairs includes the offices of the undergraduate and graduate deans as well as obvious things like the registrar, undergraduate admissions, fellowships and study abroad, the career center, the health center, and the counseling center. It also includes things you might not think of—athletics; performing and visual arts, which includes the music programs, the theater program, the various arts programs, and all of the faculty and instructors that make these programs possible; and a whole group of organizations lumped under "auxiliaries."
The term "auxiliaries" is misleading, because they're central to student life. Housing and dining are the biggest parts, but there are services like the C-Store, the Red Door Café, the Caltech Store and Wired.
Q: What makes this role exciting for you?
A: People speculate about what it is that makes Caltech a great school. A lot of folks say, "Well, it's because it's so small." But I think it's also because we work with people instead of creating some bureaucratic mechanism to solve problems. We say, "All right, what's the issue here? How can we resolve this?" instead of, "We need to create a rule. And then we need to create a group to enforce the rule." My approach is to ask, "What do we want the outcome to be?" In Student Affairs, you want the outcome to be something that supports the students, supports the faculty, and then you make sure that it's not going to adversely affect the Institute.
Q: Are there any changes coming, any initiatives you want to establish?
A: We need to think about how we build on the strengths we have and improve the things that we're weakest at. Before you make any changes to an organization, you need to understand those two things. There are a lot of parts to Student Affairs, so I need to understand the strong points of those organizations, and then get them to help me formulate what's important to do.
You always have to be careful of unintended consequences. As they say in chess, you want to think several moves deep. All right, suppose we do that. What will it mean for different parts of our population? Do we make this choice based on the data we have, or do we need more data? Will there be effects on people we haven't thought about? Maybe we need to go talk to those people.
When you have the authority to change things, you also have the responsibility to ask, "Are these the right changes?" Nothing happens in isolation. Anything you do is invariably going to wind up touching quite a few people.
Q: You've been dean of graduate studies since 2009. Did you consider taking a breather before jumping into this?
A: Well, much to my surprise, I found that being the dean of graduate studies was rewarding in many different ways. Sometimes you had to do some difficult things, but I actually liked being the dean. I was able, to some extent, to continue my research. I did some teaching—although last year I taught a major course all three terms, and I had my research group—and I was the dean of graduate studies. That taught me a lesson: a man's got to know his limitations.
So when I was asked if I would take this position, I did think about taking a break and not doing it. I enjoy my research and I enjoy teaching. I enjoy working with students, but I also enjoy trying to help the Institute as a whole. Here at Caltech, we pride ourselves on the notion that we have this very special environment. We have this small school, and we have dedicated professionals that work together with faculty to nurture that environment—having faculty who are invested in participating in the key administrative roles is essential.
When I was a graduate student here, my adviser was Brad Sturtevant [MS '56, PhD '60, and a lifelong faculty member thereafter]. Brad was the executive officer for aeronautics [1972-76]. He was in charge of the committee that built the Sherman Fairchild Library and he was on the faculty board. He emphasized to me that being involved in administration was just as valuable as all the other aspects of being a faculty member. He was a dedicated researcher, but he also felt strongly that you should be a good citizen. You should contribute.
Q: It seems like this is more than just a duty to you, though.
A: I'm looking forward to it. I'm also very conscious of the responsibility. I think it's going to be important for us all to think about how we maintain the excellence of the Institute and that we imagine how this place is going to evolve. As society evolves around us, we will naturally wind up changing. We need to do that in a thoughtful way so that we continue to be the special organization that we are.
At the end of the day, I'm counting on help from the faculty and staff. Caltech works because of the committed individuals within our organizations, the personal connections we form as we work together and the cooperation across the campus that these connections enable. It's a collective enterprise.
I think administration is not something that's done to people. It's being responsible for making sure that folks have the right work environment, the right job assignments, and the right resources. It's making sure we're doing the right things with the finite resources we have. One of our former presidents said something that's always stuck with me: an administrator's goals are not about their own career so much as helping the careers of others. You need to think about how you're helping the people working for you, because they have goals and aspirations. That's where you take your satisfaction.


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Richard J. Malinowski Sr.May 01,2013Richard J. Malinowski Sr.
LEICESTER Richard Joseph Malinowski Sr., 72, died Tuesday, April 30, 2013, at his home in Leicester.
Arrangements are pending at the Miller & Ketcham Funeral Home in Brandon.
A complete obituary will be published in a future edition of the Rutland Herald.MORE IN ObituariesBrenda L. Phillips
Brenda Lee Phillips, 50, of Rutland, died unexpectedly Monday, Aug. Full StoryHenry Schurink
SHAFTSBURY Henry Schurink, 87, of Shaftsbury, died Monday, Aug. Full StoryRoger S. Full Story
- Most Popular
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Recruitment of Pharmacopoeia Scientists (16 posts) at IPC - Ministry of Health & Family Welfare | salary up to 1 lakh/month
The Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission(IPC) is an Autonomous Body ,set up under the ministry of Health & family Welfare primarily with the objective of periodically updating of the Indian Pharmacopoeia, the book of standards for the drugs; the National Formulary of India, the book of reference on the Drugs; and other related tasks such as preparing, certification and distribution of reference substance; assist the National Pharmacovigilance Programme; testing of new drugs and review of technical dossier of drugs for purpose of monograph development for Indian Pharmacopoeia. It promotes rational use of medicines through generic prescriptions. The IPC on path of evolving as a modern scientific institution of international standard
Post: Senior Pharmacopoeia Scientists(04), Pharmacopoeia Scientists(12)


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Rosamund Pike's glowing skin and smile encapsulate our concept of an English rose. While this beautfiul actress isn't a major star, she has had consistent roles in well-known movies, such as Pride and Prejudice, An Education, Die Another Day and Wrath of the Titans. Pike previously called off an engagement to Joe Wright, who directed Pride and Prejudice.
The 25 Hottest British Actresses of All Time
23. Rosamund Pike
Watch Now


text:
- Report: #401138
Report - Rebuttal - Arbitrate
Complaint Review: Cartoon-avenue.net
Cartoon-avenue.netcartoon-avenue.net Nationwide U.S.A.
Cartoon-avenue.net will run your credit card then deny you ordered anything Internet
*Consumer Comment: I was ripped off by Cartoonavenue.net
*UPDATE Employee: Never was billed and never ordered.
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Claxton, Georgia
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 12/13/2008 09:04 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Cartoon-avenuenet/nationwide/Cartoon-avenuenet-will-run-your-credit-card-then-deny-you-ordered-anything-Internet-401138. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report.
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#1 Consumer Comment
I was ripped off by Cartoonavenue.net
AUTHOR: Chrystalline - (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Tuesday, April 07, 2009POSTED: Tuesday, April 07, 2009
I heard nothing back from them. Then on 3/309 I get a responce back from some guy name SHAWN that says my order had been backordered. So like a patient person, I waited.
Then on 3/19 I get a confirmation email that my order had been shipped.
It is not April 7, 2009, and I have checked with the website (whom WON"T reply back to me) and I have already alerted my bank and the BBB and the USPS.
The post office states that The company is more than likely a SCAM and that they printed off a USPS tracking number and that they have not received anything. There is NO PACKAGE, NO NOTHING
DO not order from this SITE< it is a TOTAL SCAM. I am consulting with attorney because they STOLE money out of my account and NOTHING has been given to me.
PLEASE PLEASE.. please do not order from this site.
Are you an owner, employee or ex-employee with either negative or positive information about the company or individual, or can you provide "insider information" on this company?
#2 UPDATE Employee
Never was billed and never ordered.
AUTHOR: Cartoon-avenue.net - (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Friday, February 13, 2009POSTED: Friday, February 13, 2009
I double checked it and the customer never purchased a single thing. I even checked with the credit card company to see if it was an error on our side and that the customer was billed and the credit card was never billed under the name Claxton(last), Georgia(first). More than likely the customer tried to purchase, didnt have a correct billing address and the credit card company put the funds on hold. If the customer can show proof of this "Credit card charge" we would be more than happy to fix this problem as we were never contact about this.
The fact that ripoffreport.com allowed this to be posted without contacting us to file a rebuttal is illegal and is slander. I hope that in the future you check your reports to make sure they are valid for legal reasons.
Shawn Weston
Customer Service Manager
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text:
it's a complex setup, I grant you.
I suppose I'd start by scaling it back and listing my needs.
1) Users can login and only download their content.
2) No one else can see their content.
I wouldn't even use Multisite for that. I'd use Custom Post Types and then grab http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/user-specific-content/ to hide each thing.
Or heck, have one master page with the downloads, everyone goes there, each person only sees their own content.


text:
Latest IDSA Coverage
IDSA: Young Adult HIV Patients in Hospital More Often10/25/2011
BOSTON -- Adolescents and young adults, ages 17-24, who were perinatally infected with HIV (PHIV) appear to have increased hospitalization rates compared with younger PHIV patients, researchers suggested here. more
IDSA: Outbreak of Measles Raises Vaccine Questions
BOSTON -- A large measles outbreak in the Canadian province of Quebec is raising questions about vaccine effectiveness, researchers said here. more
IDSA: Antiseptic Bath Cuts Infection in Kids in ICU
BOSTON -- Daily bathing with chlorhexidine reduced the risk of bacteremia in critically ill children by 35%, a researcher said here. more
IDSA: Copper Covering May Cut Hospital Infection Rates
10/23/2011 |
BOSTON -- Equipping hospital rooms with copper surfaces decreased the risk of acquiring an infection by 45%, researchers reported here. more
IDSA: Oral Bacteria May Signal Pneumonia Risk
BOSTON -- Oral bacteria may indicate which patients are likely to develop healthcare-associated pneumonia, a researcher said here. more
IDSA: Shortage of Antimicrobials Hits Hospitals Hard
BOSTON -- Doctors around the U.S. are reporting frequent incidents in which the drug they prescribe for treatment of a microbial infection is not available -- forcing delays in treatment, more
Most Read Stories
- Melanoma: Two Drug Combo Halves Death Risk
- Study Questions Statin, Memory Loss Connection
- The P-Value Is a Hoax, But Here?s How to Fix It
- ADA: Statins for Young T1D Patients, Too?
- 10 Questions: Barbara Bergin, MD
- PD Patients Report Better Sleep with Rotigotine Tx
- Breast-Conserving Tx Keeps Growing, but Disparities Persist
- Population Health Exchange: Partnerships Make the Difference
- So You Actually Drank the Water During Your Vacation?
- PodMed: A Medical News Roundup From Johns Hopkins


text:
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Lovely cut and staff member, a little pricey tho
Nice clean salon nothing seemed to much trouble
Was talked through style
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text:
However, Joe Widdowson's knee injury means the defender remains a doubt for Thursday night's clash at Sixfields.
Captain and centre-half Langmead (knee), striker Platt (calf) and midfielder Demontagnac (hamstring) have all been absent in recent weeks but they resumed training on Tuesday to put themselves in the frame for selection against the Robins.
Leading goalscorer Adebayo Akinfenwa and key midfielder Chris Hackett are strong contenders to return to the starting line-up having been rested for recent matches.
Alex Nicholls is the only player who is definitely not available as the striker continues to recover from a broken leg.
- Sports & Recreation
- Soccer
- Adebayo Akinfenwa
- Joe Widdowson


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This past session the legislature passed an amendment to the law regarding accessible parking in the state. Persons with accessible parking placards or license plates have long been frustrated by the lack of such designated parking areas, the lack of law enforcement of those areas, or the general rudeness of citizens using the areas illegally.
Thus effective August 1, 2013 the followed took effect:
Sec. 36. Minnesota Statutes 2012, section 169.346, is amended by adding a subdivision to read:
Subd. 1a. Disability parking when designated spaces occupied or unavailable. In the event the designated disability parking spaces are either occupied or unavailable, a vehicle bearing a valid disability parking certificate issued under section 169.345 or license plates for physically disabled persons under section 168.021 "may park at an angle and occupy two standard parking spaces".
The organization I represent has fielded numerous complaints throughout our 12 county NW Minnesota service area about this issue, relative to the three points made above.
Location, ST | website.com


text:
- Report: #811836
Report - Rebuttal - Arbitrate
Complaint Review: New Life Medical Tourism Group
New Life Medical Tourism GroupFort Pierce, Florida United States of America
New Life Medical Tourism Group Fred Siller Falsely hires people as agents to recruit patients for the New Life Medical Tourism Group Fort Pierce, Florida
*Author of original report: New Life Medical Tourism Group now known as De Varano Medico
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His angle with New Life Medical Tourism Group is he hires you as an agent to recruit potential patients who would like to be operated on at some Latin American locale like Colombia, Panama or Puerto Rico at a fraction of the cost in the USA and at the same time, convalesce in style on a nearby beach. Sort of "plan your vacation around your operation."
There are 2 ways you can be hired:
The first method is at no cost in which you pay for most of your office materials on your own and receive a paltry 5% commission for every patient's operation that you book. Of couse it's 5% of nothing because that's exactly what you will recruit. The doctors and hospitals at New Life Medical Tourism Group do not exist!
The second method is where you pay Fred $595 and he supplies you with all kinds of office and training supplies, business cards, a company email address and all kinds of help. If you choose this method you should kiss each and every dollar bill goodbye because you will never see it again.
Once he has his hands on your money he's long gone.
Here's a webpage which is Fred's actual scam pitch. Unbelievable that some people would actually go for it. He uses his alias Frederico Gustavo here. But at least I tried to warn you.
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 12/20/2011 11:40 AM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/New-Life-Medical-Tourism-Group/Fort-Pierce-Florida-/New-Life-Medical-Tourism-Group-Fred-Siller-Falsely-hires-people-as-agents-to-recruit-patie-811836. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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#1 Author of original report
New Life Medical Tourism Group now known as De Varano Medico
AUTHOR: Russ - (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Friday, May 18, 2012POSTED: Friday, May 18, 2012
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|Prev Close
|Day Low/High
|0.00 / 0.00
|52 Wk Low/High
|25.18 / 46.51
|Avg Volume
|Prev Close
|Day Low/High
|0.00 / 0.00
|52 Wk Low/High
|25.18 / 46.51
|Avg Volume
|Shares Outstanding
|Market Cap
|P/E Ratio
|Div & Yield
|0.60 (1.70%)
U.S. markets were down Wednesday as crude oil broke its days-long rally.
CIT Group Inc. (NYSE: CIT), cit.
TheStreet Quant Ratings provides fair and objective information to help you make educated investing decisions. We rate over 4,300 stocks daily and provide 5-page PDF reports for each stock. These ratings can change daily and today's changes are reflected in the email below. If you are looking to check-up on the stocks you currently own or are looking for new ideas, you can find our full database of password-protected ratings reports in our proprietary ratings screener: http://www.thestreet.com/k/qr/flat/stock-screener.html Upgrades: AVG, CIT, CRNT, CX, EGL, FOE, GOOD, ISNS, KRNT, KTEC, LBY, LPX, MIXT, MPC, MTSI, NATR, NVTA, REGN, SSTK Downgrades: CBPX, DVA, FCFP, ITG, PBH, STN Initiations: CFMS, JCAP, LILA, LILAK, NIHD, PYPL Read on to get TheStreet Quant Ratings' detailed report:
OneWest Bank, a division of CIT Bank, N.A.
The financial institution revealed that the central bank had concerns with its first stress test and that it took a $163 million charge related to a unit acquired from OneWest.
Trade-Ideas LLC identified CIT Group (CIT) as a "barbarian at the gate" (strong stocks crossing above resistance with today's range greater than 200%) candidate
CIT Group Inc. (NYSE:CIT), today reported net income of $14 million, $0.
Can Uber break the top 10 offerings in the U.S.? Here are the 10 largest IPOs by U.S. companies on record.
CIT Group Inc. (NYSE:CIT), a leading provider of commercial lending and leasing services, today announced that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.
CIT Group Inc. (NYSE:CIT) cit.
CIT Group Inc. (NYSE:CIT), cit.
CIT Group Inc. (NYSE:CIT), cit.
Trade-Ideas LLC identified CIT Group (CIT) as a strong on high relative volume candidate
The retail industry is going through a form of evolution, maybe even a revolution.
CIT Group Inc. (NYSE:CIT), cit.
Trade-Ideas LLC identified CIT Group (CIT) as a post-market leader candidate
CIT Group Inc. (NYSE:CIT), cit.
CIT Group Inc. (NYSE:CIT), cit.
OneWest Bank, a division of CIT Bank, N.A.
A period with ample sources of capital, very low cap rates and high valuations has set the stage for commercial real estate in 2016, but the impact of coming regulations is yet to be factored in.
Hudson Executive's James Woolery said at The Deal's Corporate Governance 2016 conference that his firm has received 16 inbound opportunities from publicly traded firms seeking its investment.
The outlook for the healthcare industry remains challenging thanks in part to uncertainty over the upcoming presidential election and the continued changes ushered in by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The current state of the capital markets is unclear, with pockets of liquidity and uncertainty with regards to what deals can get done.
Many commercial real estate executives see solid prospects for their sector, with 52% indicating that they believe that their segment of the market is either strong or very strong, and 71% say adequate capital is available...


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One of several amendments to CISPA, a cybersecurity bill many people protested this week, would have made it illegal for employers to ask for access to employees' and applicants' Facebook profiles.
While that bill passed the House, the password amendment failed, U.S. News & World Report says.
The amendment was introduced by U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo. It was voted down 224-188, with Republicans opposing it.
Bill sponsor Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ohio, claimed it was an attempt to kill the bill and irrelevant to cybersecurity, and should be addressed separately. Past legislation in Congress trying to do so has failed.
Facebook itself has warned employers that asking for access to employees' Facebook accounts
is a bad idea, regardless of legality. It could open up employers to discrimination lawsuits by giving them access to private information they're not allowed to ask about in interviews.
Some states have or may soon have protection anyway. Oregon is considering legislation that would protect college students (but not employees) from Facebook prying by administrators, The Associated Press says. It passed the state Senate this week and has gone on to the House.
Six states have already blocked employers from demanding Facebook passwords, Wired says. California and Illinois implemented laws at the start of the year, while Michigan and New Jersey did so in December. The others are Maryland and Delaware.
Those laws apply to social media accounts broadly, not just Facebook. But they don't prevent employers from looking at what is publicly posted, so watch yourself.
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text:
- Report: #269225
Report - Rebuttal - Arbitrate
Complaint Review: Wells Fargo - American Servicing Company
Wells Fargo - American Servicing Company1000 Louisiana Street, 7th Floor Houston, Texas U.S.A.
Wells Fargo - American Servicing Company Take my house away from me! Ripoff Houston Texas
*Author of original report: SAME STATUS DIFFERENT DAY..
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For 5 straight months they would not take the check the insurance had issued to pay for the reconstruction of my house. Once they did accept it; they were trying to foreclose on my property.
I paid the 5 months they were collecting, because the same as the claim check the insurance issued they kept telling me they were not my lender.
After numerous attempts of calling, writing 7 page letters with copies of all supporting documentation, the employees dismissed me numerous times and were extremely rude to the point of after holding for 35 minutes or more to speak to someone, they hanged up the phone.
In March of 2006, my situation became so critical I had to hire an attorney, who charges $400.00 per hour just to keep them from foreclosing on the property.
He got their attention alright, but I've officially been out of my house for the last 2 years and 2 months and I see no light at the end of the tunnel.
Wells Fargo dba American Servicing Company is dragging his feet on my case, so that I will give up on my situation and just let them foreclose on my property.
I've invested 5 years of my time and money to just walk away and if I do, it will not be without a fight. The employees that work there are careless and lack customer service skills.
Please notice I've been a property owner for 5 years out of which 3 I lived there and two, I've been babysitting the house, because I still have to make sure it's secure (if anyone does any criminal acts inside my property - I'm liable).
Even thought I have not lived in the property for 2 yrs & 2 months I still have to cut the grass and make sure the property is secured for no one to enter.
I've had it, I'm ready for the news to come in and expose these clowns! They do not care if you have hardships, crisis scenarios like a fire and I'm still living out of boxes in the apartment I'm staying at, because that's where I was supposed to be on a temporary basis until the rebuilt my house!
Please anyone; help! My children keep asking me when we are going back home, because they miss their house and the only thing I can answer is; I do not know; but I'm fighting as hard as I can to go back home. They answer: Mommy, fight harder!
Any help to move my case along will be greatly appreciate it; I cannot continue to pay attorney fees for a house I can't even live in!
In advance, thank you for support and time!
Houston, Texas
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 08/21/2007 04:58 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Wells-Fargo-American-Servicing-Company/Houston-Texas-77002/Wells-Fargo-American-Servicing-Company-Take-my-house-away-from-me-Ripoff-Houston-Texas-269225. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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#1 Author of original report
AUTHOR: Nancy perez - (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Friday, November 30, 2007POSTED: Friday, November 30, 2007
We were supposed to go to trial in November, but the Wells Fargo counsel requested more time; let's see.....
Would that have anything to do with "The Mortgage Crisis" in our country right now????
If the court heard my case and reviewed all of my attempts to get this rectified with Wells Fargo; and the current mortgage situation; well they just want to ride this out a little longer to see if it gets any better!
In the meantime; I've been out of my house for 2 1/2 years and counting!
I will keep you all posted; because I'm finding the internet is a wonderful thing; that will bring "Corporate America" to it's knees, because just like the ocean where big fish eat little fish, big fish can't survive without little fish!
Lesson to be learned = We all need each other!
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DSPTCH presents its latest lookbook for the Fall/Winter 2012. These functional but stylish accessories will keep your cameras and keys strapped close and easy to access. Inspired by the US Army and built up to military standards, these straps can carry anything from the small point-and-shoots to the bigger DSLRs. You don't need to worry about dropping your precious gear anytime soon. Visit the DSPTCH website to cop these slings.
DSPTCH Showcases US Army-Inspired Camera Straps And Key Chains In Fall 2012 Lookbook
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Genre: Simulation
Publisher: Nintendo
The best way to tell your girl to go whip you up some grub without getting slapped is to challenge her to a game of Cooking Mama. Amazingly, a fictional woman can demand the most complicated dishes out of your girlfriend but the crib turns into Wrestlemania if you ask her to make you a sandwich.
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I added a backround image from my computer using the Headway visual editor, now I've decided it sucks and I can't remove it!
I'm a complete novice when it comes to this and am having nothing but endless trouble. Thought it would be simple but I thought too soon!
Anyone out there who can help?!! Please....??!!


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- Report: #930257
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Complaint Review: YMAX Communications Corp.
YMAX Communications Corp.5700 Georgie Avenue Internet United States of America
YMAX Communications Corp. Magic Jack LP Company is forcing their customers to use their international long distance service, blocking all access numbers from any other telecommunication company. Is that legal? Internet
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This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 08/21/2012 06:27 AM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/YMAX-Communications-Corp/internet/YMAX-Communications-Corp-Magic-Jack-LP-Company-is-forcing-their-customers-to-use-their-i-930257. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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Conquering the College Admissions Essay in 10 Steps
Crafting a Winning Personal Statement
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Preview (read now) Add to my own site Add to my wishlist Author's page Publisher's page
moreWriting a memorable personal statement can seem like an overwhelming project for a young college applicant, but college essay coach Alan Gelb's holistic strategy and reassuring voice takes out the intimidation factor. Students will identify an engaging topic and use creative writing techniques to compose a vivid statement that will reflect their individuality. A much-needed supplement to other college entrance guides, this useful handbook will help students win over the admissions dean, while preparing them to write better papers once they've been accepted. A guide to crafting a meaningful and polished college admissions essay that expresses the applicant's unique personality, strengths, and goals. Step-by-step instructions lead students from idea to initial draft, through revisions, and to a final version ready for submission. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 69 percent of high school graduates enroll in college.ReviewsPublisher's Weekly, March 24th 2008: Included in test prep/college feature article
From the Trade Paperback edition. less
Title: Conquering the College Admissions Essay in 10 Steps
Author: Alan Gelb
Title: Conquering the College Admissions Essay in 10 Steps
Author: Alan Gelb
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Try as he might to ignore it, Sunday ought to be one of those full-circle kind of days for Dartmouth's own Jordan Todman.
A decade ago, he was staring down a life of trouble as a middle-schooler in his native New Bedford. But after moving in with one of his close friends in neighboring Dartmouth, he righted the ship and endured one of the most decorated football careers the South Coast has seen in sometime, leading the Indians to the 2007 Division 1 Super Bowl and graduating as the state's second all-time leading rusher (behind another New Bedford native, Jo Jo Goodine).
In spite of this, Todman was overlooked by many Division 1 colleges for his undersized frame, until late in his high school career. He ended up proving all the doubters wrong in a terrific career at UConn, rushing for 1,000 yards twice and being named Big East Offensive Player of the Year last season. After the Fiesta Bowl loss last January, he declared for the NFL Draft.
Is the motivation in place again? Todman fell to the sixth round to the San Diego Chargers in last April's draft, and will be battling it out with Mike Tolbert, Ryan Mathews and Jacob Hester for playing time in the backfield. The Chargers visit the Patriots this Sunday, and either way there's sure to be a few cheers when Todman takes the field.
Following practice yesterday, Todman talked with ESPNBoston.com from across the country to talk about his journey to the NFL.
Q: Going back to your days growing up in New Bedford, what attracted you to football? What players did you look up to?
A: "I started playing football like any other kid, naturally in the backyard, that type of thing. I play a lot down at the Boys and Girls Club, and from the age of eight on I started playing for the New Bedford Bears [in Pop Warner]. I instantly fell in love with it. When you do something a lot and it's all you think about, it's easy to love it. Since I was seven years old, playing football was my life, and the NFL was my dream.
"Growing up, playing for the Bears, you started to look up to the Bears, and I wanted to be like a Walter Payton type of player. But obviously, I didn't get to see that much of him growing up, so when I first started out I was a big fan of Terrell Davis. As I got older, Reggie Bush was definitely my idol, watching what he did at USC."
Q: You were part of a pretty talented group at Dartmouth, along with Artie Lynch (Georgia), Sean Sylvia (Boston College), Justin Mello (UNH) and Justin Cruz. Looking back on those days, what do you remember most about playing with those guys?
A: "Playing with them, we knew we were good athletes, but at the high school level of competition, we didn't know if we'd all go on to be as successful at the college level. I think we're all lucky to have that success. With them, it was more of building relationships that I didn't have...I mean, I had them, but this was more so just building community, camaraderie, friendships. Justin's my brother [the Cruz family maintained legal guardianship of Todman during his time at Dartmouth], so I still talk to him a lot. Sean and Artie, I talk to them a fairly good amount, but they're both always at practice, and the time difference out in California with the three-hour time difference makes it difficult."
Q: Last time you were at Gillette, you were in one of the more epic high school games to be played at the stadium. It was you versus Everett running back Isaac Johnson in the Division 1 Super Bowl, and you guys fell in overtime. What feelings come up when you think back to that? Do you still regret losing?
A: "I've been in the film room this week watching film against the Pats from past games at Gillette Stadium, watching it alone it brings back memories. I'm in the meeting room thinking, 'Wow, back at Gillette I scored three touchdowns, so I've got a little bit of bragging rights (laughs). But we're at the NFL level now, so if I go there and do pretty well, I'll be happy.
"Any time you lose a game, you're not excited about it. I went all out in my last high school game, and to lose like that was tough. But you win some, you lose some. It's part of the game, you've got to move on."
Q: You were in a unique situation in high school. You encountered some trouble in middle school in New Bedford, and stayed with the Cruz family in Dartmouth throughout high school, renewing legal custody every 90 days. What kind of influence did they have on you?
A: It was an amazing influence. They gave me a lot of structure, staying with them, making sure I was focused in school, keeping my head on straight. They gave me a chance to have a fresh start."
Q: What kind of life lessons from coach Rick White do you still carry with you?
A: "Me and Coach White have a great relationship. We still talk to this day, I'll text him any time of the day with any questions. He's been huge, so that's a tough question...it's more so he was a great coach that pushed me, and expected me to push myself at all times. The things I'd done last year that I'm doing here now, there'll be be a play that I'd run, I'll go out there and remember him telling me 'Do it like this', to this day, you know, 'Do it like this'. It's more so the memories. We just had a great relationship, we could talk about anything."
Q: Cooler moment for you last year -- playing in The Big House or in a New Year's bowl game?
A: I'd say the New Year's bowl. Playing in the Fiesta bowl great accomplishment for us and for the University of Connecticut. Play in a football game against a great team like Oklahoma on a high stage, it was huge, something you don't get to do every day. They put us on that pedestal to compete and show what we can do against that competition."
Q: Take us through draft day. How nervous were you watching the ticker? What was your reaction when your name was called?
A: "Not so much nervous, but I was anxious. I had a lot of things going through my mind. You try not to let it get to you, but it definitely gets to you. It's one of those feelings where you can't really explain how you feel about it until you're in the situation. Waiting for your name to be called, you never know what it feels like until you're there. It's tough.
"Then once you get called, you're excited, you forget about everything, how long it took, all of the stress waiting for it. It's a huge weight off your back, you take a deep breath and you're like, 'I made it'. Not too many people achieve their dream of going pro and being successful, so it was outstanding."
Q: Not having contact with coaches in the offseason during the lockout, how did you prepare yourself?
A: I came out to San Diego probably a month or so early, to get in a few workouts with Philip Rivers and the rest of the guys, going over the playbook and protection, trying to give ourselves an advantage. As far as regular training, not knowing when the lockout's going to end kind of put us in a weird situation, because it's something where you have a lot of time on your hands, but you've got to focus and you want to maximize the time, but without knowing when you'd be needed. It was tough, but I stayed focused. But even more than that, I couldn't wait for the lockout to end.
"You really can't prepare self [for contact], you know what it's like that first day of contact after you haven't been tackled in months. You put in that mouthpiece and go full speed. You get a headache after that first hit definitely, but after that you right back at it play after play. The next day, you practice, you go out and do the same thing."
Q: What's the most difficult part transitioning to the NFL?
A: Attention to detail. Every inch matters, and it can change a game in the NFL. The stuff at the college level that you get away with and still be successful, in the NFL it doesn't work. When you're playing the best of the best, there's no room for mistakes."
Q: You're with two other Massachusetts guys, Stephen Cooper (Wareham) and Jacques Cesaire (Gardner), have you found anything in common?
A: "Coming in, I heard a lot about Coop. Being from Wareham, that's close to hometown, and we know a lot of the same people and some of the same friends, and coming to San Diego I knew nobody. Coop greeted me with open arms. He's shown me the ropes and given me a lot of lessons. He's helped me out with my moving situation, I hang out with him, he's shown me around san diego, and now I feel like I'm home. It was a head start getting to know one of my teammates for a while. He's been a successful player in the league for a long time. If I'm able to do what he did for as long as has, then that's a huge success for me. With him, it's about picking his brain.
"Jacques is another guy that's been here a long time. He's got a lot of wisdom. He knows a lot about the system and the people around here. He references things back home he had back there that they don't have here. Our Boston accent gets picked on a little. We talk about how many people we have out for the Patriots game. We have a lot in common, being from Massachusetts."
Q: What are you going to do when you get back out here?
A: "If I have time on my hands, I'd love to go home. It would be cool stop in and see my grandmother and both families. I'm not staying too far from home, so there's a good chance I'll be able to go to Dartmouth and spend some time with family."
Q: What do you expect that first walk back into Gillette to be like?
A: "Another game. Yeah, I'm playing in front of my hometown, but it's another football game, no matter who's playing and and who we're playing against, it's another football game. There's really no other feeling. It's cool to have family and close friends there to support, I'm happy and grateful to have them. But it doesn't change much, it's just another football game."


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don't say I didn't warn ya....LOL!
Yea......and the price has really fallen thru the floor.....LOLOL.
You're such a friggin' idiot. So the price has held under increasing shorts, while OPTR seeks an acquirer. Why do you think that is? Logically (if you can handle that), who do you think is shorting. Geez...........
All of the above, just one man's opinion.
Ucited , I am a fellow long and it looks like the 50k daily block buys have been on our side as well. What are your short term predictions. I know we're just waiting on news to hit like the range or at least 1 bid or the actual buyout. I was expecting something by early June which would imply any day now but who knows I hate buyout speculation because you can be waiting forever. I'm expecting 18-25 but looking more towards lower end. My main concerns would be the recent stock appreciation could prove to force too high of a buyout price . It's hard to gauge what someone would pay for 60 mil in sales. Lipitor had similar sales and sold for 1.35 bln and it was a very good buy. I do not think people understand how hard it is to launch a new drug and that optimer in the big boys hands will sell exponentially better. The fact that we have a rumored 3 bidders alleviates some of the fears but the risks must be noted. Eagerly awaiting some news please!
Sentiment: Strong Buy