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The Top ETFs Over Three Years: Real Estate Dominates
by Charles Rotblut, CFA
Exchange-traded fund (ETF) investors would have done well over the past three years by having a high allocation to real estate.
Five funds that focus on real estate investment trusts (REITs) beat all ETFs in terms of performance for the three-year period ending June 30, 2012. A sixth real estate ETF came in seventh place.
Preventing a clean sweep of the top 10 spots were two health care funds, a retail sector fund and one fund that invests in Thailand. This is not the mixture most investors held in their portfolios.
For the second consecutive year, I asked my colleagues to compile a list of the best-performing exchange-traded funds over the past three years. This list is designed to complement both "The Individual Investor's Guide to Exchange-Traded Funds 2012" (published in the August 2012 AAII Journal) and my annual article on mutual funds with the best five-year performance (see "The Top Funds Over Five Years: Bond Funds Take the Lead" in the March 2012 AAII Journal). Given the growth of ETFs, I thought there would be continuing interest in an article that looks at the best-performing exchange-traded funds.
Caveats & Notes
Before I delve into the details, there are a few caveats and notes worth pointing out.
A three-year period has been used for ETFs because many exchange-traded funds still lack five-year histories. This shorter time period prevents a direct, apples-to-apples comparison to the annual listing of the best-performing mutual funds, however. The time periods covered are also six months off; though seemingly short, it can make a difference in terms of which fund categories are represented in the top-10 lists. Keep in mind that a six-month shift not only picks up six new months of performance, but it also drops six months of activity. (We use this split to keep the top fund data comparable between the ETF guide, which is published in July, and the mutual fund guide, which is published in February.)
The overwhelming majority of exchange-traded funds are passively managed. Though there are some actively managed ETFs, most are designed to track an index (passive management). With a few exceptions, actively managed ETFs have yet to attract significant amounts of investor dollars. As I stated in last month's AAII Journal, there are only three actively managed ETFs with assets of more than $1 billion. In contrast, most mutual funds are actively managed, meaning their managers handpick the securities to invest in.
Nonetheless, there are similarities between the two types of investments. Both mutual fund and exchange-traded fund performance is significantly influenced by broad market, asset preference and category-specific trends. In some cases, passive strategies are the best way to take advantage of these trends, favoring ETFs. In other cases, active management is better, favoring mutual funds. Looking at the longer-term performance of both types of investments makes the decision process easier by dampening the short-term market noise that can distort the numbers.
Always keep in mind that fund analysis involves more than just looking at total return. Performance relative to a fund's peers, the fund's volatility, the composition of the fund, the strategy used, expenses and size are all important factors. Proper diversification is also very important; you need to seek out the fund or security that best fulfills your diversification needs. Furthermore, look at the fund's portfolio, the index it is designed to follow and the weighting strategy used. An ETF's risk cannot be judged by the fund's name alone.
Which Funds Were Included
I largely restricted the list of ETFs to those with three years of annual return data and a minimum of $200 million in assets. (Exceptions were made when the performance of a smaller fund warranted it.) Funds that use leverage to provide double or triple the return of their underlying index or that follow inverse strategies (they rise in price when the underlying index falls) were excluded from consideration. These funds are designed to be held for short periods of time, not several years.
Table 1 on pages 28 through 31 shows the top ETFs by category. Three-year performance was calculated through June 30, 2012, to match the statistics displayed in "The Individual Investor's Guide to Exchange-Traded Funds 2012," which was published in the August 2011 AAII Journal.
In addition to three-year performance, returns for the year to date, the last 12 months and each of the past five years (where available) are displayed, along with returns for the most recent bull market (March 1, 2009, through March 31, 2012) and bear market (November 1, 2007, through February 28, 2009). Returns that are in the top 25% of all ETFs within their investment category are shown in boldface. Other pertinent information is presented, including yield, tax-cost ratio, risk, portfolio composition and expenses. Risk numbers that are in the lowest 25% of all ETFs within the investment category are also shown in boldface. Twelve-month and three-year annual total returns based on market value have been added this year to show how closely each fund's price performance matches its net asset value (NAV) performance. The bigger the difference, the larger the premium or discount shares of the fund have traded at over the period.
Some of the categories used here combine two or more separate categories from last issue's ETF Guide. This was done in cases where there were not a significant number of qualifying funds and combining individual categories made sense. When categories were combined, category averages are not displayed.
The Top Real Estate ETFs
As stated at the beginning of this article, real estate ETFs dominated the list of top-performing funds, accounting for six of the top seven spots.
IShares FTSE NAREIT Residential Plus Capped Index Fund (REZ) claimed the top spot with a three-year annualized return of 34.3%. The fund holds REITs that invest in residential properties (apartments), health care properties (hospitals, nursing homes, etc.) and self-storage real estate. Though the fund delivered a 15.8% return to investors in 2011 and gained 10.6% during the first half of 2012, the impact of the calendar cannot be ignored. This fund lost 59.3% of its value during the last bear market period, setting the stage for the current impressive three-year performance. The bull market return period is very close to the trailing three-year return period ending in June. We are using performance from March 1, 2009, through March 31, 2012, to measure bull market performance.
The timing of the period reviewed also favored the five other real estate ETFs that appear on the top-10 list. For example, iShares Cohen & Steers Realty Majors (ICF), SPDR Dow Jones REIT (RWR) and Vanguard REIT Index (VNQ) had bear market losses of 68.5%, 66.4% and 64.5%, respectively. In the three-year period starting in July 2009, the three rebounded with annualized gains of 33.9%, 33.2% and 33.0%, respectively.
It wasn't just the easing of the credit crunch and the corresponding bottoming of real estate that helped these funds; falling interest rates also played a role. REITs pay higher yields, making these funds attractive to income-seeking investors. The downside of the impressive price performance is that yields on these funds now only range between 2.9% to 3.3%—higher than the S&P 500 index, but potentially lower than some REIT investors would prefer. (By means of comparison, at the end of 2008, yields for these funds ranged between 7.1% and 8.9%.)
The Other Top 10 ETFs
Two healthcare funds are in this year's top-10 list. PowerShares Dynamic Pharmaceuticals Portfolio (PJP) prevented real estate funds from also claiming the sixth spot, elbowing its way in with a 30.3% annualized return over three years. First Trust NYSE Arca Biotechnology Index (FBT) claimed the 10th spot with a 27.4% annualized return. Though in the same sector, these two funds are very different.
PowerShares Dynamic Pharmaceuticals Portfolio fund invests in pharmaceutical companies, with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY), Amgen (AMGN), Merck & Company (MRK), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY) and Abbott Laboratories (ABT) making up 30% of the portfolio. In other words, this fund holds established pharmaceutical companies and gives a larger weighting to some companies than others.
In contrast, First Trust NYSE Arca Biotech Index fund is an equal-weighted fund. Rather than following the traditional indexing methodology of giving more weight to larger companies, the portfolio is evenly allocated to all stocks held by the fund. The advantage of such weighting strategies is that they prevent a single or a small group of stocks from significantly influencing the performance of the index or the fund following that index. The downside is that such strategies can lead to more volatility and higher expenses. Furthermore, this ETF targets smaller biotech companies, such as Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN), Life Technologies (LIFE) and United Therapeutics (UTHR). Biotech stocks have historically been more risky than their larger drug company brethren because the companies often depend on just a few existing or experimental drugs.
SPDR S&P Retail (XRT) and iShares MSCI Thailand Investable Market Index (THD) took the eighth and ninth spots with annualized returns of 30.2% and 29.8%. SPDR S&P Retail, which is also an equal-weighted fund, benefited from the rebound in consumer spending over the past three years. IShares MSCI Thailand, as its name implies, invests in Thailand-based companies. Country-specific funds, especially those of smaller, emerging economies, carry several risks, including limited information about the foreign economy, political instability and currency fluctuations. In addition, during the past 12 months, this ETF has traded at a premium to its underlying assets, with an annualized market return of 11.9%, compared to a net asset value return of 9.9%. This means investors have paid more than a dollar for a dollar's worth of assets. (As I was writing this in mid-August, THD was trading at a 0.83% premium.)
Dividend Funds Lead Several Categories
The quest for income led investors not only to real estate funds, but also to dividend funds. ETFs that tracked dividend-oriented stock indexes were the top performers in the large-cap, small-cap, global and foreign stock categories.
Leading the domestic large-cap dividend funds over three years was WisdomTree Equity Income (DHS). This fund follows a dividend-weighted index that seeks out stocks with high yields and then weights them by their aggregate cash dividends. This is one of several types of alternative strategies that some funds follow. Such strategies seek to weight stocks by a component other than market capitalization with the intention of generating better performance. They are a hybrid between passive and active strategies because, although the ETF does track an index, the index itself is based on a manager's idea to achieve better performance through an alternative method.
Look Beyond Performance
There is always a temptation to look more favorably at the best-performing funds. Though performance does matter, it is just one factor to consider.
You should also consider your portfolio needs. A basic allocation of ETFs holding domestic stocks with varying market capitalizations, international stocks, government bonds, corporate bonds and international bonds will serve most investors well. Once this basic portfolio allocation is established, other asset classes—such as real estate and commodities—and more specialized funds can be added.
Sector and country funds can boost a portfolio's returns, but prudence is required when using them. Make sure you understand the factors that have driven a sector's performance over the past few years and how likely it is that those trends will continue in the future. You cannot safely navigate a windy road by only using a rear-view mirror. Country-specific ETFs can allow you to target specific markets, but can be more volatile and expose you to exchange-rate risks.
Be sure you fully understand the index that the ETF is designed to follow. Similar sounding indexes can have different return characteristics. They can also either hold different stocks or weight the same stocks differently. A quick visit to an ETF family's website can give you the list of current holdings.
Finally, use this rule of thumb when looking at ETFs: "Just because you can invest in something doesn't mean you should." Buy only those ETFs that you fully understand; avoid those tracking indexes or investing in sectors or countries with risks that you cannot identify.
Table 1. Top ETFs Over Three Years
Michael Audet from MD posted over 4 years ago:
Good informative article - thanks for the analysis and insights as I've been moving more toward ETF investments
John Gorsline from WA posted over 4 years ago:
It always seems to boil down to one thing. "Be Greedy When Others are Fearful" , most important thing Warren ever told me. But you must be greedy and buy those things that will always have value,Not just everything that has lost all it's value. Realestate, Apple brands etc.. Not two things that the average Joe plummer doesn't understand. So why doesn't he buy things that he knows will eventually recover due to it's intrinsic value? Because the other thing that Buffet taught us, " Investing is more about temperament than intelligence! " What is it right now that nobody wants but will always eventually be valuable? That is worth the time to explore.
John Hunt from WV posted over 4 years ago:
A great article, most helpful. It's certainly a set of ideas for my portfolio.
Catherine Dunn from NJ posted over 4 years ago:
cannot make chart wider
Deborah Gray from VA posted over 4 years ago:
thanks for the insights and analysis
Ray Lopez from NY posted over 4 years ago:
Good report, thank you.
Joseph Wilkonski from NY posted over 4 years ago:
Informative info. I have relieved myself of the burden of the fees associated with mutual funds (sold them)and have started purchasing ETF's.
Gene Zitani from CA posted over 3 years ago:
Charles Rotblut from IL posted over 3 years ago:
Hi Gene,
Due to work being done by AT&T, our telephone lines are temporarily down. We can be contacted via email at: firstname.lastname@example.com.
If this helps, here a is list of the key areas of the website we suggest members visit:
If you need help with the model portfolios, this guide may be of help:


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Efficiency Vermont names grant winners
BURLINGTON Two central Vermont organizations are among the recipients of grants for nonprofits that serve low-income Vermonters, Efficiency Vermont has announced.
According to a news release, the Community Energy Partnership grants will enable five Vermont nonprofits to provide energy-saving products and assistance to clients. In addition, winners will obtain training and support from Efficiency Vermont to enable them to better work with clients in their homes.
The winners, selected as part of a competitive process announced at the end of 2014, will provide clients a range of services, including identification of energy-saving opportunities, installation of efficient products and education.
Central Vermont Community Action Council, based in Barre, will use a $19,890 grant to train 176 home-based child care providers to deepen services, according to the release.
Montpelier-based Onion River Exchange will use an $8,150 grant to install energy efficiency measures in a minimum of 40 households, expand a lending library of efficiency tools and weatherization materials, and host educational workshops in Montpelier and surrounding towns.MORE IN This Just InMONTPELIER A new report from a commission that studied the cost, availability and quality of... Full StoryVermont fish hatchery changes focus, looks inland
BETHEL, Vt. Full StoryHONOLULU (AP) A group of Hawaii musicians and a Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant provided... Full Story
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subset: commoncrawl


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Put shoes wherever you need them with this 24" Solid Shoe Shelf from Northern Kentucky Cedar. Made in USA of Aromatic Red Cedar which naturally absorbs odors and repels insects.
Assembled Shelf size: 27-3/4" W x 15-1/2" D x 2-1/4" H
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Northern Kentucky Cedar allows return of items within 7 days of receipt. Contact Woodcraft Supply Customer Service at 1-800-535-4482 for return details. Restock fee may apply. Customer pays return freight.
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College Church > Sister Parish & Fair Trade > Parish Programs at La Natividad
La Natividad commits itself to meeting unmet needs in their community--similar to College Church's commitment to Social Ministries. La Natividad provides quality education and access to healthcare for their parish community and the larger community of Santa Maria Chiquimula.
College Church financially supports Nim Ja, the Health Clinic, and the Women and Children's Health Development Program. In addition to these 3 programs, La Natividad also has a Fe y Alegria school, Myrna Mack, which offers education for preschool and and primary grades. Nim Ja also offers education for middle school aged children, the Kamam K'iche Research Center and a farm.
Nim Ja
Nim Ja is the secondary school and boarding school for La Natividad. Nim Ja focuses on providing students with a holistic education complimented with vocational training.
The education at Nim Ja consists of Math, Literature, Religion, Spanish, English, Kiche, Geography/Social Studies, Science, Music, Dance, and Computer and Audiovisual. It also includes the farm school where students learn agricultural skills and participate in vocational training in welding, carpentry, and cooking.
College Church's financial support allows La Natividad to employ certified teachers offsetting the cost of education for the students. It is difficult to maintain certified teachers because other schools in larger towns and cities offer competitive salary. Our support allows La Natividad to compete with employing certified teachers to offer quality, holistic education to the students. Without College Church's financial support, La Natividad would not be able to offer the level of education they currently provide.
Health Clinic
La Natividad operates the only health clinic that speaks K'iche. Their health clinic is the only clinic within a 1 hour radius of Santa Maria Chiquimula. The staff comprises a full-time certified nurse (similar to a nurse practitioner), a full-time pharmacist, and a part-time doctor who comes to see patients two days per week.
The health clinic offers basic health care and tests (i.e. blood tests) and a small pharmacy.
College Church's financial support allows La Natividad to employ a highly qualified, full time certified nurse and support of some their other costs to operate the clinic. This allows the health clinic to operate 6 days a week and offer health care to the parish community and Santa Maria Chiquimula community that would otherwise be a minimum of an hour away.
Women and Children's Health
Development Program
The health development program serves expectant women, mothers, children, and women widows in the surrounding 37 communities. The health team--Nurse, Pharmacist, and staff assistant, travel to 2-3 communities 3 days a week. They visit each community one time a month. During these visit, they weigh the children, measure their height, and growth, and offer educational programs on various topics related to caring for infants, children, and healthcare needs. For example, they educate on dental hygiene, bathing, and nutrition. As part of this program, the women are able to receive nutritional food and supplements at a subsidized cost. A typical food package includes rice, canned salmon, beans, dry nutritional milk, and other nutritional supplements. This program allows families who live in the rural highland areas access health care and health development as well as nutritional food and supplements. Most communities are at a minimum 45 minutes away from town by car in the mountains.
Myrna Mack
Myrna Mack is the primary school at La Natividad. It serves children from preschool through fifth grade. Since Myrna Mack is a Fe y Alegria school there are no school fees for the parents. The government pays the teachers salaries. For 20 years, La Natividad does not have to financially own or maintain the grounds, allowing time for La Natividad to prepare to assume the financial responsibility. They are able to offer quality, private education in a rural area.
Myrna Mack was a woman committed to the rights of the Guatemala people during the war. She had strong relationships with the Jesuits and was eventually killed.
To learn more about the Myrna Mack Foundation, click here
To learn more about Myrna Mack, click here
The Kamam is a research center that focuses on K'iche translation as well as preserving K'iche language and stories. The staff translate the Bible and other liturgical passages into K'iche. They also research and record mythological stories and teach Kiche as part of the school program. K'iche language is part of the Mayan language family. It is the second-most widely spoke language in Guatemala after Spanish. In the Central Highlands of Guatemala, where La Natividad is, majority of the population speaks K'iche as primary language.
The Farm
La Natividad collaborates with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Livestock office in Santa Maria Chiquimula to provide educational and training opportunities for parishioners and community members. They engage children, adults from the Christian Based Communities, and outside groups. In each community, there is a group of representatives responsible for the local vegetable gardens. Once a month, La Natividad hosts education and training classes for people to come together to share best practices in agriculture, food, and livestock. They learn about agricultural methods and how to improve production and yields.


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Medical services for traditional students are provided solely by Eagle Physicians at their new facility located adjacent to campus at 1210 New Garden Road. The office is conveniently northwest of campus and is easily accessible to students by way of the sidewalk along New Garden Road. They are a fully staffed clinic of board-certified physicians, nurse practitioners, and registered nurses, along with support staff committed to care for our students.
Eagle Physicians purchased the land from the College to build their new facility in 2012.
The Student Health Services office is located on campus at 1203 Rachel Carson Court. While medical care is not administered at this site, the office maintains students' immunization records and some medical records, in addition to offering supportive services to students and their parents regarding medical health questions and concerns.
All basic healthcare needs are provided for Guilford traditional students at no charge. A list of covered services (no co-pay required) is available here.
In addition to these services provided at no cost, Eagle will accept many insurance plans (including Guilford's student health insurance plan through United Health Care) for treatment of more complicated issues or for testing not included in the list of covered services. Some of these services will require an appointment. Students must present their Guilford College ID at check-in. It is important that students have a copy of their insurance card with them here at school and that the student has means (credit/debit/cash) to pay his or her co-pay or any charges that may be incurred due to an illness or testing not covered by our agreement with Eagle Physicians.
New Student Requirements
Completion of the immunization form is mandatory and must be completed by a physician.
Prior to attending classes, each new student is required by North Carolina law to submit certification of immunization to the on-campus Student Health Services office, located at 1203 Rachel Carson Court.
These records, along with the Medical/Family history form may be mailed to us at: Guilford College Student Health Services 5800 West Friendly Ave, Greensboro, NC 27410. You may also fax 336.316.2184 or email this information to
Susan Smith
. If you have questions about immunizations or the health form, please call 336.316.2194.
International students are, in addition, required to have a physical and TB skin test. Students who fail to comply with this state law within 30 days of the start of the semester will be withdrawn from class.
Traditional students must have health insurance each semester and will be automatically enrolled in the UnitedHealthcare insurance plan for Guilford students, which is billed to your Guilford account. If you have one of the accepted insurances you may opt out of this plan by completing the online waiver. Please call the Business Office at 336.316.2142 for questions regarding insurance. Information and frequently asked questions about 2016-17 UnitedHealthcare Student Resources coverage are available here.
The following health insurance providers tend to be the most readily accepted by local health care providers:
Student Immunization form
Adult/CCE Student Immunization Information


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A community meeting was held on March 29 at the Mineral Community Hall. At the meeting, attended by numerous Mineral area residents, Mr. Stewart gave an overview of the BGCD's function and discussed procedures for applying for permits. He discussed current water levels and explained how levels are measured. We appreciated his input.
Thanks also go out to the many Mineral area residents who took the time and voiced their concerns at this specially called meeting. As the area continues to develop, new demands are being paced on our groundwater everywhere. We, in the Mineral area, are paying attention.
Franklin D. Massey


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Businesses use poems to marketApril 09,2014Businesses use
poems to market
RANDOLPH More than 50 shops in Randolph are featuring poems among spring sale advertisements on their windows this month.
The idea was inspired by a similar effort called PoemCity in Montpelier, said event organizer and Democratic Rep. Marjorie Ryerson of Randolph.
I really wanted to open the door on poetry as a topic and have everybody enjoy it and be less afraid of it, she told Vermont Public Radio.
When shes not working in the Legislature, Ryerson teaches poetry.
Shannon Stoddard of Sidewalk Florist felt the promotion was a boon for businesses.
Anything to get people to stop and look in your window and stand at your window and interact with your storefront, even if its reading somebody elses poetry is good enough, Stoddard said.
Larry Hart of the local NAPA store said some passers-by have stopped to read the poems in his window, although others just want an oil change. But Hart thinks the event spotlights local talent.
Theres a lot of creativity in this town, Hart said. Its an honor to have them out there.
The poems in PoemTown are written mostly by residents in central Vermont and will be featured throughout the month. There also will be a series of events by published poets and an open mic night at which any Vermont poets may read their work.
On Thursday, award-winning poets Pamela Harrison of Norwich and Samn Stockwell of Marshfield will be at Main Street Bakery in Randolph at 7 p.m. The open mic night will be at White River Craft Center on April 15 from 6 to 9 p.m.MORE IN Vermont NewsMONTPELIER Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. Full StoryVermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell plans to join the U.S. Full StoryMONTPELIER Gov. Full Story
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ASG RFP outlines options to increase air service
American Samoa Government prefers to consider five possible approaches to increasing air passenger and cargo service to and from American Samoa, according to the Request for Proposal (RFP), which also outlines details of the options for consideration.
The RFP — issued by the Office of Procurement — seeks a firm or firms as consultants to conduct the "Air Transport Marketing Study" project funded by the federal government. The advertisement began on May 3rd in the Samoa News.
The five options for consideration all hang on getting U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) approval and point to examples when such orders or approvals were issued.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) may grant stopover rights at U.S. domestic airports to foreign carriers. For example, on a route between Auckland and Los Angeles, a foreign carrier can carry foreign and U.S. passengers with a Pago Pago stopover. In either direction, the passengers — both foreign and U.S. — will be able to stop in Pago Pago for a temporary stay.
ASG says there may be possibilities for stopover and transfer authority in American Samoa for foreign carriers as there is for other areas of the U.S. where foreign carriers already have the right to stopover and transfer passengers.
For example, USDOT in past orders have granted Alaska, Hawai'i, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, "expanded stopover, transfer and co-terminalization authority for foreign carriers serving their airports."
Gov. Togiola Tulafono has hinted in the past of a stopover in Pago Pago by Air Zealand (from Auckland) or Air Pacific (out of Nadi, Fiji) to and from Los Angeles.
ASG says passenger stopover rights might be combined with foreign cargo transfer rights to "enhance the economic benefits for foreign carriers to stopover in Pago Pago". For example, a foreign carrier might carry cargo from Auckland to Pago Pago for further transport by regional carriers to other islands outside of American Samoa.
However, if a foreign carrier were to carry U.S. cargo from Los Angeles to Pago Pago for similar foreign destinations, the foreign distribution must be with that airline's aircraft and crew, unless another authorization applies to supplement the permissible service — something which has been done in the past.
ASG discussed at length the code-sharing scheme, which is a commercial agreement where two or more airlines agree to share, for marketing purposes, the same code used to identify carriers in the airline computer reservation systems.
Such an agreement, in effect, allows two carriers to offer a new service route, to benefit from each other's marketing network and to develop more traffic together, all with less financial risk than each if each were to act alone, said ASG.
For example, under code sharing, a foreign carrier together with a U.S. carrier could jointly market air service between Pago Pago and Los Angeles. By instituting their service to and connecting with their respective service at Pago Pago under a code share, the foreign and U.S. carriers can develop the desired market with considerable cost savings to each other.
ASG points out that this type of agreement can also include air cargo services.
According to ASG, the direct benefits from such passenger and cargo service will be:
• greater air service for residents and businesses in American Samoa;
• expanded air services to assist public health, safety and security concerns;
• economic, job and service growth in Pago Pago as a transshipment, interconnection point;
• lower air passenger and cargo costs for people not only in American Samoa but throughout the region;
• wider access to services and goods from the U.S.;
• increased opportunity to export U.S. products and service in the region; and
• closer U.S. diplomatic and business relationships with previously overlooked island nations in the Eastern Pacific.
According to ASG, foreign carriers arriving in Alaska can now apply for the USDOT's discretionary authorization to transport foreign cargo to Alaska and transfer that cargo to another foreigner carrier — or to a U.S. carrier — for transport to a foreign destination.
Under code sharing a second foreign carrier could even combine the foreign cargo with U.S. cargo — from a U.S. carrier — in Alaska for transport to foreign destination, said ASG, adding that the special Alaska statutory provision is set by federal law and a similar one for American Samoa would require congressional legislation.
Among the top policy goals for the USDOT Office of Aviation and International Affairs is the improvement of air service and access for small and rural communities in the context of opening markets and providing community benefits, said ASG.
And the three primary goals of this office at USDOT are: liberalizing international air services by seeking market liberalization; ensuring the benefits of a deregulated, competitive domestic airline industry; and developing policies to improve air services and/or access to the commercial small and rural communities.
"In pursuit of these goals, USDOT has expanded foreign air service for other communities throughout the U.S," said ASG.


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This page looks at the fitness requirements for rugby. You link to more specific pages from here. This part of the site is based on the:
- Speed, Agility and Quickness, SAQ(r) book & video.
- Brian Mckenzie's Sports Coach website and newsletter.
- John Kenbeek has added a strength training program.
- Plyometrics work based on a video from Human Kinetics.
- Fitness requirements for Rugby from Dave McLean, former Scottish Rugby Union fitness adviser.
- Other material and lots of discussions with other people.
With all those books you read on the rugby and fitness topic it is difficult to digest a program that is suitable NOT for full time professionals but for rugby teams that train two - three times a week. I now use only the interval and speed work of McLean (you can download his paper for free - look at the Free Downloads page) what I combine with exercises from Pierre Villepreux. All within the SAQ framework.
Again, develop what works for you and for your team.....
I have used SAQ (r) for a couple of years now as the basis for not only my fitness work but as a basis for everything I do. I am very enthusiastic about it. Apart from everything else, if your team has fitter, faster, more mobile players you are earlier at the make-or-break situation than your opponents and you will win games. Increasing the potential of ALL your players is something you can achieve when implementing the SAQ ideas. Yes, SAQ is much more than dribbling across these ladders.
I will present the SAQ model (the SAQ Continuum) but also try to show how this is also a generic model for learning new skills. First, what is this SAQ stuff? It is about activating the nervous system using special exercises and equipment that helps providing feedback to the body. SAQ does not promote a warm-up of three laps around the pitch! It does not include any running of longer distance at all.
The SAQ Continuum structures a training session as follows:
|Dynamic Flex (Warm-up+)
|Getting ready, physically AND mentally. No stretching whatsoever!
|learning the skill
|Increase the tempo
|Accumulation of potential
|Mixing in more elements
|High intensity. Focus on the speed of execution
|Expression of potential
|This is where it all should come together in a game like situation.
|This is cooling down - some stretching is done
The SAQ books and videos are all based around this idea and it is all focused on learning evasive running skills. I will try to describe how the learning of other rugby skills can be done in the same model.
On the mobility aspect: Co-ordination and programmed agility are instructed through light plyometrics, zigzagging through a row of markers, little shuttle runs, picking up the ball, head-roll and other similar exercises.
Think about working on the team's contact skill using hit shields. Focus on the individual.
|Innervation (Activation of the neural pathways)
This transition stage in the training session between warm-up and high-demand periods of work is characterized by footwork drills for co-ordination, such as the Fast foot ladder, dance-like foot patterns, or read-and-react tennis ball drills similar to the baseball infielder's drills. Key is increasing speed while keeping the mechanics sound.
More general: this is where you traditionally add more variables to the exercise.
In my contact skill training you can bring in several hit shields a bigger group.
|Accumulation of potential
This is the "conditioning" time of practice and programmed agility, but in very controlled quantities. The potential for injury is high if you mix fatigue with high quantities of drills and prolonged elapsed time of direction change. Combination of different running styles in one exercise like an obstacle course run is great for varied stimuli movements.
Again, for the regular rugby stuff you can imagine that this is more the training in game like situation and speed.
In my contact skill training example: this is where I ditch the shields a go for a more realistic approach. Group - and grid size are important control parameters here.
In this stage, where programmable and random agility is trained, work is done with medicine ball throws, high-quality plyometrics jumping over tackle bags and contact shields, and short speed bursts. Tennis ball drop and recovery drills, and resistance running either by players holding each others shirts, sprint harnesses and downhill running. Or over speed running, downhill are all part of the Explosion phase.
This is where you would do your game like rugby training. high intensity work. Interval training is a good format. On the Interval page you see how I combine ball and support running skill drills from Pierre Villepreux with the interval requirements as defined by David McLean. When defining a set of interval runs you can get a feeling about the players by measuring the drop off throughout the set.
Read about lactate thresholds and more complicated stuff below...
Fortify your team psychologically, with this I mean you team's ability to put in the hard work. Applaud and complement your team on their work ethic.
|Expression of potential
With the last stage everything comes together, the practiced skills applied in a game like situation.
Speed is important in sprinting but also important in reaction time or speed of thought. Agile players can evade tacklers and quickness means explosiveness. With the special SAQ programs developed to improve the performance of athletes involved in team sports. It is very useful in rugby.
This is the where your sessions is nearly game like. You can control it by realizing the ball (I always carry several balls), how much you allow and focus on only those elements you did before.
In my contact training example I would have a 5v5 game in a 10x10 grid. Every stoppage I would release another ball.
Using your voice is very important here!
When you cross-over this SAQ Continuum theory to all your practices you will be surprised how your team will be geared up to the task.
Lactate threshold?
Working at a high intensity during the Explosion stage trains your players in game related and intense work. Their bodies learn to maintain it at minimum costs. This work is called running beyond a steady state. Intensity is related to your players lactate threshold above which lactic acid begins to increase appreciably in their blood. This is why strength endurance training always includes a drop off in performance: your muscles are getting filled with lactic acid. If you fill your players up with too much lactic acid you cannot do much more the rest of the training session. How do you monitor it?
Yes, I realize you do not have the fancy equipment but you can get an idea by simply observing your players: is their stride shortening? are their knees not lifted that high? Or during interval session: is there a drop-off between the first and last run? Do not be afraid of shortening the interval series (or adding a series for that matter).
How about aerobic endurance then?
You need an aerobic endurance base to do all the work. This used to be translated in running at a steady state. Meaning that a player runs a pace where the supply of oxygen can meet the demand of his muscle tissues for oxygen. We used to run for hours all summer to build a basic fitness level.
What has been proven is that doing the SAQ and interval work you also increase the aerobic base. SAQ tells you that running the longer distances even have an adverse affect: this will only train your muscles in the wrong way: remember you want the fast contracting twitchy kind to become Jason Robinson! Looking back in time I can recall some problems we had in the transition from summer training to competition.
I stopped running my players longer distances longer than 150 meters.....
Weight Training
Read more under Power for strength training programs and plyometrics. I am a strong believer in free(!) weight training based on the resistance training principle. The basic strength training program on this site is developed by Michel van Halderen on this principle. For this program the body mass and not the 1RM is the basis.
Strength of the core muscles are very important in rugby. Not only does Core Stability provide the stability for the quick and speedy movements but also think of it as protective harness against injuries. By using free weights and things like Swiss Balls, players improve their core stability. This is why I also do a lot wrestling exercises and 1 on 1 scrumming.
A third form of weight training focuses on building body mass. This is basically the body building training.
Learn how to rest
Although Zinzan's hard yakka seems necessary to get to the top, rest is equally important, but is all too often missing from a potentially great athlete's schedule. All competitive teams should have at least one annual six- to eight-week period in which little training is done, and should avoid the temptation to carry out too many high-intensity workouts during the training year. You the coach should learn to look at the signs of overtraining.
Become more efficient
At carrying out the exact activities required in rugby, so that less energy is wasted during competition and hard exertions feel less stressful. The key to improving your efficiency of movement is to recognise that each muscle in your body is composed of collections of individual muscle cells. If you make a particular muscle stronger, then fewer of the individual cells within that muscle will be required to sustain a certain level of effort. In other words, more muscle cells within the strengthened muscle are allowed to rest while you are engaging in your sport, and other muscles, which assist your power-boosted muscle, are less likely to be called into play.
Since you will need to activate fewer individual muscle cells to run near max speed, your overall energy demand will be lower and you will be more efficient! As a result, you will be able to step up to higher than expected intensities of exercise, or else conserve large quantities of precious muscle fuel if you prefer to remain at your traditional work rate.
To get more powerful, and therefore more efficient, you will need to carry out some training at levels of effort which are actually higher than your usual competitive intensities. This is called working at overspeed and you can use complicated tow-rope constructions or run down a low sloped hill.
Sprinting on a tartan track is proven successful in developing players speed, it has however also proven to be very dangerous if not done properly. Great care should be taken in the introduction to running on tartan. I am a victim of this myself: destroyed my Achilles Tendons....... Introductory sessions are essential if you are to avoid the risk of injury and should be repeated in a modified form even after a lapse of three weeks with no track running. Look at McLean's work for more information.
The Rugby Zone are retailers of Rugby training and fitness equipment. They can supply all of your speed, strength and power training equipment.Please visit their online store for all of your Rugby Equipment.
Relevant topics
- A scientific approach to the rugby running style as opposed to the traditional track&field style.
- Strength or Power
- Brian Mckenzie's Sports Coach website
- Book reviews on Plyometrics and SAQ in the book section
- Interval training
- Speed and SAQ
- Fitness testing: what kind of test is useful


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Yo ST.
Half a year ago I released my first Remix album. It recieved alot of love on various blogs and DJ Premier played one of the tracks on his Radio-show "Live From Headquarterz".
I hope you'll give it some listens and ALL feedback will of course be returned.
Rugged Remixes
Started by MWP , Apr 30 2013 03:11 AM
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July 2013
Dear friends of Istituto Acton,
Even though the craziness of preparing for and delivering three Acton University lectures [2] has passed, I still find myself trying to work out just how Christianity and politics relate to each other. Recent developments such as the debates over abortion and gay marriage may be one reason but it also may have something to do with my perceptive Acton Institute colleagues who asked me to sum up the importance of St. Augustine of Hippo, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (45 minutes each!). There's nothing quite like preparing a lecture or writing an essay on a seminal, complicated thinker to make you come to grips with his thoughts. The problem is that you realize you've just barely scratched the surface, and end up re-formulating and re-thinking the premises of your lesson long after it's finished, but I guess that's what life-long education is all about. It may be old hat to some of you who attended my AU lectures or the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung conference "Western Culture? Western Values?" that took place just afterwards, so please bear with me as I attempt to clarify what I mean by the noble failure of Christian politics.
These two descriptions of Christian politics – nobility and failure – may seem an odd way of putting it from someone who works for the Acton Institute, since our mission is to demonstrate and promote the compatibility of Christianity and free-market economics, the latter of which makes up a big part of our liberal commercial society. But as I was comparing what Augustine, Locke and Rousseau had to say about Christianity as a "civil religion," it seems pretty clear that 1) the early Church did not expect to "govern" society; early Christians simply tried to spread the faith and promote holiness by preaching and example, 2) Christianity becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire did not eliminate theological or political disputes within the Church or society, as the Donatist and other controversies showed, and 3) Christianity had to be re-interpreted by thinkers like Spinoza and Locke to serve liberal purposes, which changed the nature of Christian moral and social thinking and eventually contributed to the demise of "Christian society," as it was once called.
Of these, the third is the most controversial because it implies that authentic Christianity is not sufficiently liberal or tolerant for the modern age and that there were few or no pre-modern liberalizing trends within Christianity itself. There's much historical and scholarly evidence to support the latter, much of which has been published in Acton's Journal of Markets and Morality [3] over the years. But the larger question is: What has happened to this Christian basis for liberalism over the succeeding centuries? Or to put it another way, while Christianity may have provided fertile soil for modern liberalism, has liberalism returned the favor?
Answers to the above questions are obviously complex and mixed, depending on how we define liberalism and success in Christian terms. The cultural patrimony of Christian Europe is certainly evident to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. Yet one need only glance at current trends in architecture, art, literature and music, let alone in film and television, to realize that these are generally moving away from, not towards, Christian imagery and symbolism, and to the degree that Christian images are invoked, they have less and less significance for each generation. Furthermore, such imagery and symbolism were generally thought to inspire the religious imagination of the people, a case that's getting increasingly hard to make with falling Church attendance, shrinking families, fewer marriages, etc. Yet, for all our supposed rationalism, we're more fascinated than ever with horror films that depict the occult, as David P. Goldman has pointed out [4]. Welcome to the land of the "spiritual but not religious."
By "Christian politics," I don't mean to limit the discussion to political parties or politicians who call themselves Christian, or to limit it to the "post-Christian" West when the Church is growing in Africa and Asia. I mean, instead, to ask whether there is a particularly Christian way of structuring and governing society in general. The answer taken from the experience of the early Church, to say nothing of the New Testament itself, seems to be negative. One gets the same sense from modern Catholic social teaching which calls the Church a "leaven to society," i.e. it improves whichever type of society it finds itself in, without imposing any particular form of its own (see Vatican II's Gaudium et Spes [5], n. 40). But don't all politics justifiably rely on some kind of penal law and coercion? Can a Christian polity based on divine charity and mercy effectively ensure human justice, liberty and security? How can we govern ourselves and be governed by God at the same time? These questions make up some aspects of the "theologico-political question" which admits of no easy answer.
This modern Catholic understanding of Church and society appears to return to the early Christian understanding and in line with why Jesus himself did not rule in the manner of Jewish kings. On the other hand, today's Church has to deal with a "post-Christian" society; the religious and political landscape has indeed changed due to Christianity, for example, which has been (and may yet again be) re-interpreted to fit new political purposes. Proof can be found in Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration [6] where he calls tolerance the "chief characteristic of the true Church" and says that "everyone is orthodox to himself." It's as if you could draw a straight line from such statements to Nancy Pelosi's calling abortion "sacred ground. [7]" Nevertheless, we should remember that for centuries Christians did think there was such a thing as a Christian polity, a.k.a. Christendom; it was this type of society, largely feudal, agrarian and patriarchic, that had to be overcome before a modern, liberal, commercial one could take its place in the West. It's why Locke spent the entire First Treatise on Government attacking the older types of arrangements, with Adam Smith drawing an equally unflattering picture of the feudal lord and society in the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations.
A return to feudalism or distributism being highly unlikely and not very desirable, what are faithful Christians to do? How are we supposed to be leaven in a rapidly de-Christianizing, neo-pagan society? (As the most prominent liberal critic of liberalism, Rousseau also denied the possibility of a Christian republic and sought, instead, to unify society around the general will. I tend to attribute the French public's opposition to gay marriage to the republican general will rather than a traditionally Christian defense of marriage.) Part of the challenge will be recovering authentic, rather than liberal interpretations of, Christian teaching, which is no small task because liberal Christianity is so reassuring and flattering to liberal prejudices. We can still learn from St. Augustine, who knew full well how corrupting political occupations such as being a judge or emperor could be (see City of God Book XIX [8], ch. 6 and Book V [9], ch. 24, respectively). Nevertheless, neither he, nor St. Paul, nor Christ himself tells Christians to avoid politics altogether. Deciding life-and-death political issues is indeed terrifying, which means there is also something noble about it, about arranging our lives together based not only on our interests, but on justice, charity and the common good. Politics cannot and should not be ignored because doing so would make us less human. Instead of trying to resolve the tensions between Christianity and politics, which often results in cheapening distortions of both, perhaps it's better to be aware of and live with them as much as we can.
As I write this letter, we're awaiting the July 5 publication of Pope Francis's first encyclical, entitled Lumen fidei, some of which has been written by his predecessor Benedict XVI. It will be interesting to see how their particular pastoral and theological insights complement each other and to what degree the encyclical inspires Christians to engage the world by enriching their faith. I'll likely have more to say about this on the Acton PowerBlog [10], in other media outlets, and next month's newsletter.
Until then, I wish those of you who are taking time away from work in July a restful, fruitful and safe vacation and a happy July 4th to all my fellow Americans.
Kishore Jayabalan


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Welcome to the Northwest Indiana Chapter of the American Meteorological Society and the National Weather Association! The AMS is an organization that promotes the development and dissemination of information and education, as well as the advancement of professional applications in the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences. The NWA is a professional organization that promotes excellence in operational meteorology and other related applications.
The Northwest Indiana Chapter was founded at Valparaiso University in 1996, and invites several guest speakers each year. The chapter has organized the Great Lakes Meteorology conference each spring since 2002, and was recognized as an AMS student chapter in 2007.
Membership of the AMS/NWA is open to anyone with a strong interest in meteorology. Meetings are typically held once per month at Valparaiso University. For more information, please contact any one of the chapter officers.
The 14th annual Great Lakes Meteorology conference will be held April 2, 2016.
Stay tuned for more information!
Learn more about Valparaiso University's nationally recognized meteorology program.


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GV Now
GVSU, GRCC agreement helps students transfer
Posted on June 04, 2014
Grand Valley State University has expanded and enhanced its longtime articulation status with Grand Rapids Community College.
Grand Valley President Thomas J. Haas and GRCC President Steven C. Ender signed a 2+2 pre-major articulation agreement during a ceremony June 4 at Grand Rapids Community College. The agreement is designed to help GRCC students in a variety of programs experience a seamless transfer to Grand Valley.
Grand Valley was the first university in Michigan to sign a 2+2 articulation agreement with a community college when Grand Valley and GRCC signed an agreement in exercise science. With the June 4 signing, faculty members from both institutions will work together formalizing a set of GRCC courses that students need in order to complete a transfer to Grand Valley.
"This agreement will enable student success. It is another step in our partnership designed to help students reach their goals," Grand Valley President Thomas J. Haas said. "This reduces cost and redundancy so students can get on with what they need to do, which is get into the classroom, engage with faculty and achieve the goal of earning a degree from now both institutions."
GRCC President Steven C. Ender said: "I have compared our relationship with Grand Valley to a common law marriage. We've been in it a long time and now it's time to go to the altar. I am proud of the ways we have made it easier for our students to transfer. This has never been a competition. The goal has been to create clear pathways for students."
Grand Valley Provost Gayle R. Davis said the agreement will make it easier for students to make a plan and set goals. "Students who are able to imagine themselves in a role are more confident to take the steps to reach that goal," said Davis. "When they can see the possibilities for their lives for future work or future schooling, it becomes less of worry and more of a clear pathway. The students are the winners in all of this."
* President Haas said the agreement enables student success (audio).
* President Haas said the agreement reduces cost and redundancy (audio).
* Provost Gayle Davis said this is just one of many collaborations with GRCC (audio).
* Provost Gayle Davis said the agreement will help students set goals toward a degree (audio).


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2 accused of preying on teen girls
Two Newport men accused of frequenting parties to pick up teenage girls were arrested Monday, one of them charged with the rape of a teen whose child he fathered.
The other, Frontier High School substitute teacher and volunteer assistant boys basketball coach Devin Binegar, allegedly had sex on at least two occasions with a 15-year-old girl.
And more charges could be on the way.
Shane Dye, 24, of 70 Wilson St., is charged with a first-degree felony count of rape and is being held in the Washington County Jail on a $250,000 bond, Sheriff Larry Mincks said. Binegar, charged with a fourth-degree felony count of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, posted a $15,000 bond and was released from the jail.
Municipal court had no record of attorneys for either man, and a phone number for Binegar could not be located.
The alleged crimes occurred in 2011, but Mincks said authorities believe Dye and Binegar may have engaged in sexual activity with other underage girls. Anyone with information on such encounters is asked to contact Detective Kevin Hornbeck at 376-7070.
Mincks would not comment on whether there have been any accusations of Binegar interacting inappropriately with students at Frontier High School or Newport Elementary School, where he has substituted.
"We will be following up on all leads that come up," he said.
Frontier Local Schools Superintendent Bruce Kidder said the district has not been notified of any such incidents.
"We've never had a report of any kind of inappropriate behavior at all from the young man," he said.
Binegar, who became a substitute for the 2012-13 school year, is being removed from the district's sub list, Kidder said. He also served as an unpaid assistant boys basketball coach this season, but it was not immediately clear whether he had in any prior seasons.
To become a substitute and volunteer as a coach, Binegar had to pass a criminal background check by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation. There was no indication of any problem with that, and a review of his records on the Marietta Municipal Court website showed only traffic violations, including driving under a suspended license in 2011.
"He passed his BCI clean," Kidder said.
Mincks said Binegar and Dye went together to parties where teenagers were present.
On or around July 1, 2011, Dye was at a party in Newport where a 15-year-old girl reportedly passed out after drinking moonshine. According to a release from the Washington County Sheriff's Office, Dye and the girl were transported by other people to a home in Marietta, where she fell asleep on the couch.
When she awoke, her pants had been taken off and Dye stated they had had sex, the release says. The girl told agents of the Major Crimes Task Force she had not consented to sex and had no relationship with Dye prior to the incident.
The girl later gave birth to a child, the release says, and DNA tests indicate a nearly 100 percent likelihood that Dye is the child's father.
Around the same time, in an unrelated incident, Binegar is accused of having sex with a 15-year-old girl he met at a party on two different occasions.
Mincks said the case has been under investigation for "several months" but it was not immediately clear that one of them was a substitute teacher.
"It took us a while to identify (Binegar)," the sheriff said. "Right after we found out who he was, we moved fairly quickly."
Mincks declined to say how authorities learned of the incidents.
Both men were arrested without incident – Binegar at his home and Dye after turning himself in at the jail.


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|Field Trips Chair
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Field Trips
All trips begin and end at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, unless otherwise indicated. Details about the precise trip itinerary are provided upon registration or you may contact the field trip leaders directly. Participants are cautioned against scheduling any tight travel connections with field trip return times, as those times are estimates, and delays in the field may occur. For a list of hotels near the airport, contact GSA.
If you register just for a field trip, you must pay a non-registrant fee in addition to the field trip fee. This fee may be applied toward meeting registration if you decide to attend the meeting. Trip fees include transportation during the trip and a trip guide.
421. Late Quaternary through Holocene Landscape Evolution of the White River Badlands, South Dakota
Wed.-Sat., 31 Oct.-3 Nov. — Canceled
- 422. A GeoMystery Field Trip to the Anton Escarpment
Cosponsored by GSA Engineering Geology Division; GSA Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division
Thurs., 1 Nov.
David C. Noe, Colorado Geological Survey, +1-303-866-2432, .
- Everybody loves a mystery. One of Colorado's great mysteries is the origin of the "Anton escarpment" that crosses eastern Colorado's high plains for nearly 100 miles. Was it formed by movement along a fault? If so, what is the timing? Or is this straight-line feature a product of massive, late Pleistocene erosion? The highlight of this field trip will be the examination of new research trenches dug into the slope of the 80-ft-high escarpment. We will look at trench stratigraphy and archeology, and (if present) indicators of seismogenic movement. Because these trenches will be dug later in 2007, even the field trip leaders don't know exactly what we'll see!
- Min: 6; max: 36. Cost US$85 (L, R)
- 423. Integrated Analysis of Laramide to Holocene Deformation of the Northeastern Front Range Using 3-D Balancing and Comparative Fracture Analysis of Pre- and Post-Laramide Strata
Cosponsored by GSA Structural Geology and Tectonics Division
Thurs., 1 Nov.
Eric A. Erslev, Colorado State University, +1-970-491-6375, ; Scott M. Larson.
- This field trip will unravel the multistage folding and fracturing of the Rocky Mountains by integrating larger fold and fault geometries with detailed minor fault, joint, and paleomagnetic analyses in a transect just south of the Colorado-Wyoming border. Extensive fault analyses in this area of diverse structural trends show both regional Laramide shortening and local deformation partitioning, which are integrated into a restorable 3-D model of the Laramide deformation. The timing and mechanisms of extensional fracturing (jointing) are revealed by comparing their orientations to minor faults in the spectacularly folded pre-Laramide strata and to fractures in on-lapping post-Laramide strata. The trip will traverse new open space acquisitions that span the Front Range foothills and include the Lindenmeier archaeological site of the Folsom culture.
- Min: 12; max: 36. Cost US$79 (L, R)
- 424. Stratal Architecture and Sequence Stratigraphy of the Mount Garfield Formation, Grand Junction Area, Colorado
Thurs.-Sat., 1-3 Nov. — FULL
Diane L. Kamola, University of Kansas, +1-785-864-2724, ; Andrew S. Madof; Mustapha Zater.
Trip begins and ends in Grand Junction, Colorado.
- This trip will present a depositional and high-resolution sequence stratigraphic analysis for the Upper Cretaceous Mount Garfield Formation, Grand Junction area, Colorado. The Mount Garfield Formation is interpreted as coastal plain to shoreline-nearshore environments, and represents the final regression of the western interior seaway. Nearshore and tidal environments are well exposed. Detailed field study has identified five depositional sequences, each bracketed by a well-documented sequence boundary (regional erosion surface overlain by a basinward shift of facies). The five sequences will be examined in stratigraphic succession, starting with the most proximal (western) exposures and working progressively eastward (i.e., more distally) with each stop. Highstand deposits will be traced along depositional dip, from proximal to distal exposures. These consist primarily of wave-dominated shoreface successions and range from distal offshore siltstones to shoreline sandstones. Parasequence architecture of the highstands will be emphasized, including the regional distribution of component subenvironments. Facies of the lowstand and transgressive systems tracts consisting primarily of incised valley fill deposits will also be emphasized. Incised valley fill strata are complex: some valley fills are characterized by vertically nested fluvial successions, while others contain vertically stacked, tidally influenced sandstones. Many localities contain stacked incised valley fills, which are discernable only through detailed outcrop mapping. A sequence stratigraphic interpretation of the Mount Garfield Formation illustrates the complex stratal geometries associated with higher frequency sequences, as well as the compartmentalization of a formation caused by the depositional response to rapid and successive changes in base level.
- Min: 9; max: 24. Cost US$270 (2ON, L, R)
- 425. Laramide Paleoseismites of the Bighorn Basin
Thurs.-Sun., 1-4 Nov.
Mervin J. Bartholomew, University of Memphis, +1-901-678-1613, ; Kevin G. Stewart.
- Paleocene-Eocene faulting along the Beartooth fault in southern Montana and northern Wyoming and earlier faulting in Elk Basin generated numerous large earthquakes. The record of these earthquakes is spectacularly preserved as paleoseismites in synkinematic sediments within the adjacent Bighorn Basin. This field trip will focus on new work by Bartholomew, Stewart, and their graduate students on the nature and distribution of these paleoseismites and their relationship to the kinematic history of the Beartooth front. Field trip stops will include sites in the basin from Red Lodge, Montana, to near Clark, Wyoming. Most of the exposures are within the Paleocene Fort Union Formation and are easily accessible by vehicle and short hikes. Day 1 of the trip will consist of driving from Denver to Red Lodge, Montana, where we will stay overnight. Days 2 and 3 will be spent examining paleoseismites in the Basin, returning to Red Lodge each night. On Day 4, we will return to Denver.
- Min: 10; max: 30. Cost US$420 (3ON, L, R)
- 426. Walking with Dinosaurs along Colorado's Front Range
Thurs., 1 Nov. — Canceled
- 427. Geomorphic Effects of a Catastrophic Forest Fire
Thurs., 1 Nov. — FULL
Lee McDonald, U.S. Forest Service, Denver, ; Robert G. Raynolds.
- This trip will visit the area burned by the catastrophic Hayman Fire. We will examine the sedimentary responses to the fire damage and consider the long-term effects of such a major fire in the Colorado Rockies.
- Min: 12; max: 45. Cost US$69 (L, R)
- 428. Old and New Geologic Studies along the Front Range between Golden and Morrison, Including Structural, Volcanic, and Economic Geology and Paleontology (2)
Cosponsored by Friends of Dinosaur Ridge; GSA Geoscience Education Division; GSA Sedimentary Geology Division
Thurs., 1 Nov.
Chris Carroll, Friends of Dinosaur Ridge, +1-303- 697-3466, ; Tim Connors; Harald Drewes; T. Caneer; Norb Cygan.
- This field trip will visit the Laramide uplifted late Paleozoic to early Cenozoic stratigraphic interval exposed between Golden and Morrison, Colorado. Topics to be presented include dinosaur remains of three ages, folds, faults, and two-stage volcanism associated with the Laramide Orogeny. Economic deposits, past and present, will be observed along the way, including a uranium roll front and oil seeps near Morrison. This field trip provides geologic educators with an opportunity to view excellent field lab sites for geology instruction, including Mesozoic dinosaur tracks and bones of the Dakota Sandstone and Morrison Formation. Field trip stops will include the classic dinosaur track site at Dinosaur Ridge, Triceratops Trail, Red Rocks Park, and North and South Table Mountains.
- Min: 12; max: 45. Cost US$85 (L)
- 429. Coeval Miocene Magmatism and Crustal Extension in the Colorado River and Death Valley Extensional Terrains
Thurs.-Sun., 1-4 Nov.
- J.P. Calzia, USGS-Menlo Park, +1-650-329-5538,
; O. Tapani Rämö; C.F. Miller, S.D. Ludington.
Trip begins and ends in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- Geologic, petrologic, and isotopic studies of Miocene plutonic and volcanic rocks in the Colorado River and Death Valley extensional terrains demonstrate a close temporal and spatial relation between magmatism and crustal extension; the coeval nature of the magmatic rocks and extensional structures suggest a genetic and possibly a dynamic relationship between these geologic processes. This four-day post-meeting trip will begin and end in Las Vegas, Nevada; field evidence and lab data presented during this trip will be summarized into a magmatic-tectonic model that relates magmatism to coeval crustal extension in extensional terrains.
- Min: 10; max: 20. Cost US$430 (3ON, L, R)
- 430. Aquifer Stratigraphy in the Denver Basin
Fri., 2 Nov.
Robert G. Raynolds, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, +1-303-370-6047, ; John Moore; Marieke Dechesne; Steven A. Boand.
- Trip participants will visit outcrops of the important bedrock aquifers in the Denver Basin. We will examine a series of detailed subsurface datasets tied to the outcrops and evaluate the volume and character of the groundwater resource that is being rapidly exploited in the Douglas County area. This trip will be of interest to stratigraphers, water-use planners, and residents of the Front Range urban corridor.
- Min: 8; max: 22. Cost US$90 (L, R)
- 431. New Perspectives and an Update on Continental Accretion — Colorado Style: Island Arcs and Back Arcs of the Central Front Range
Fri., 2 Nov.
- Lisa Rae Fisher, ; Thomas R. Fisher, Colorado School of Mines, +1-303-215-0480,
- This is an all new update of our popular field trip held during the 2004 Denver Convention. It is a one day trip through the Central Front Range of Colorado to examine the ~1.7 Ga metamorphosed volcanic and sedimentary sequences formed during the accretion of Colorado onto the North American craton. Island arc, back-arc, and sedimentary basin fill sequences that comprise the so-called "Idaho Springs Formation" will be examined. The possible origins of and significance of the Coal Creek Quartzite an amphibolite-grade meta-sandstone and conglomerate will be discussed and presented. The trip will feature the original stops plus two new stops to further examine implications of the metamorphic sequences and textures in interpreting the paleogeology and geography of the original protolith. Implications and significance of new geochronolgy will be discussed and examined. Lastly, the trip will attempt to put the Central Front Range accretionary sequences into a more global context by comparatives with worldwide events such as accretionary events of similar age around the West African Craton.
- Min: 10; max: 40. Cost US$85 (L, R)
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Posted: January 10, 2013
Attend a Registration Fair at the University Partnership Ridge Campus of LCCC
Register for classes at the new University Partnership Ridge Campus (UPRC) of Lorain County Community College during a registration fair from 3-7 p.m., Thursday, January 17.
The event will be a one-stop registration event for students interested in taking courses at the UPRC, LCCC's newest learning center in North Ridgeville.
The registration fair will include:
A 10-week session of LCCC classes will begin on Monday, February 25.
UPRC offers bachelor and associate degree programs, as well as certificate programs. Two University Partnership programs are located at UPRC - The University of Toledo's Computer Science and Engineering bachelor degree and The University of Akron's Computer Information Systems bachelor degree.
The UPRC includes a Patient Simulation Learning Center for Allied Health and Nursing programs, and a new associate degree program in Health Information Technology. Other programs offered at the UPRC include business and IT certificates and degrees, and the digital forensics and computer application integration specialist programs. Associate of Arts and Associate of Science degrees may also be completed at the UPRC.
UPRC is conveniently located in North Ridgeville on Lorain Road adjacent to the Interstate 480 east entrance ramp.
Registration for courses at the UPRC can be completed in person at the UPRC or at the main campus in Elyria in the Bass Community Library and Resource Center
For more information about the UPRC, visit www.lorainccc.edu/ridge or call (440) 366-4800.


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You purchased this item onView this order
Herbs for Kids, Quietussin PM, Echinacea with Honey, 4 fl oz (120 ml) (Discontinued Item)
- You earn loyalty credit for every order you place at iHerb!
- Loyalty credit is equal to 10% of the value of your order, excluding shipping charges.
- Your loyalty credit will be applied towards your next order as soon as your current order has shipped.
- Your loyalty credits are valid for up to 60 days from the date of your last purchase.
Shipping Weight:?0.41 lbs (0.19 kg)Shipping WeightThe Shipping Weight includes the product, protective packaging material and the actual shipping box. In addition, the Shipping Weight may be adjusted for the Dimensional Weight (e.g. length, width & height) of a package. It is important to note that certain types of products (e.g. glass containers, liquids, fragile, refrigerated or ice packed) will often require protective packaging material. As such, these products will reflect a higher Shipping Weight compared to the unprotected product.
- Product Code: HFK-71575
- UPC Code: 701619715759
- Package Quantity: 4 fl oz (120 ml)
- Dimensions: 1.7 x 1.7 x 4.5 in, 0.35 lbs (0.16 kg)
- Soothing Nighttime Respiratory Support
- Dietary Supplement
Wild Cherry Bark and Horehound blend soothes irritated throats and supports respiration.
Alcohol-Free Calming formula for nighttime support.
Suggested Use
Shake well, use only as directed. Take up to one hour prior to bedtime, and repeat at bedtime or as needed, up to 4 times per day. For children over 1 year of age.
|1-2 yrs (< 24 lbs)
|½ - 1 teaspoon
|3-6 yrs (24-48 lbs)
|1 teaspoon
|7-11 years (49-95 lbs)
|1-1½ teaspoons
|12 yrs (>95 lbs)
|2 teaspoons
Other Ingredients
Vegetable glycerin, deionized water, lemon natural flavor, honey, xanthan gum, lemon essential oil, peppermint essential oil.
Do not use if safety seal is broken or missing. Keep out of reach of children. Keep your licensed health care practitioner informed when using this product.
|Supplement Facts
|Serving Size: 2 teaspoons (10 ml)
|Servings per Container: 12
|Amount Per Serving
|% Daily Value
|Total Carbohydrates
|7 g
|0 g
|Proprietary Herbal blend**
Echinacea purpurea (herb), valerian (root), chamomille (flowers), horehound (herb), passion flower (herb), cherry (bark), echinacea angustifolia (root), mullein (leaf), pueraria (root), marshmallow (root), menthol (crystal)
|10 ml
|†Percentage Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.
*Daily Value not established.
**Organically Grown or Ethically Wild Harvested


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Keep outdoor time with kitty safe with the simple-to-use Size Right Nylon Adjustable Cat Harness. This completely adjustable figure-8 style cat harness is designed for a secure yet comfortable fit around the neck and girth. Curved back pad provides added comfort while swivel ring allows kitty to move freely without the lead tangling underfoot. Single-ply, 3/8" wide nylon cat harness adjusts to fit 12"-18"girth.
Please select Blue, Orchid, or Red harness.
Shop all Cat Collars, Leads & Harnesses.
Please click on "More Information" for care instructions.


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Cisco made a big deal about a set of Telepresence announcements on June 14th that in any other industry would have been labeled as "bug fixes" and "playing catch up". These announcements put into question how much in touch is Cisco with the industry or perhaps, Cisco thinks that their customers are unaware of what is going on in the market outside of "CiscoVille".
According to Cisco: MX200 is Priced to Scale
Cisco introduces an HD videoconferencing room system endpoint for $21,600. At that price, it includes a 42" screen delivering 720p at 60 fps. What is amazing is that every other significant videoconferencing room system manufacturer has had lower priced, higher performance solutions available for years!
OK, it will natively connect to a $300,000 Cisco TP room without transcoding. But recognize that there is NO IMMERSIVE experience when the MX200 is involved in the meeting. It is just an HD videoconferencing room system. And if you want 1080p, rather than 720p, that upgrade will cost you even more!
To be fair, the real value is that it includes a monitor stand and is ready to run in just 15 minutes. For that wonderful convenience, Cisco views that its customers are willing to pay a tremendous premium for a run-of-the-mill HD videoconferencing room system. What game do they think they are playing?
According to Cisco: Telepresence Conductor Simplifies Multiparty Video Communications
Cisco customers have really needed this product for a long time—too bad that they still need to wait for the scheduled release in December. With this announcement, Cisco is admitting to the following:
- Customers want to have ad hoc meetings without having to schedule infrastructure resources.
- A hardware-based infrastructure creates a fixed limit on the number of multiparty participants.
- Smart meeting organizers reserve more hardware ports than they require just in case additional participants need to join. This practice guarantees unused, but yet unavailable hardware ports.
- A "switching" videoconferencing infrastructure architecture for telepresence combined with a "transcoding" MCU architecture for rooms and desktops causes an administrative nightmare.
People who use web conferencing, audio conferencing or VidyoConferencing will wonder how on earth anyone lives with these needless restrictions. Well, Cisco has realized that this complexity is getting unbearable for their customers, and risks Cisco's ability to be competitive. In the very near future, Cisco customers will find more videoconferencing users who want to connect from personal devices—personal computers, tablets or smartphones—so Cisco has announced that Conductor will fix these problems. That is good news for 2012 planned upgrades.
If you look below the surface of Conductor to understand the problem it tries to solve, you begin to see the complexity caused by having different video infrastructure architectures.
- Cisco gives you a "switching architecture" for ensuring the low latency telepresence experience for the CTS Series endpoints.
- A more affordable "MCU architecture" provides transcoding to attach endpoints to a multiparty video conference, but needed ports may not be available.
– A customer may have different MCU versions with some having SD hardware ports, and others having HD hardware ports that must be matched to the meeting requirements
– MCUs may be physically located in a different geography than where the resources are needed at any time during the day.
So Cisco's solution to addressing the administrator's nightmare is to sell the Cisco Telepresence Conductor and remove the administrator from having to handle all of the choice management complexity. Since the hardware was inherently underutilized prior to Conductor, Cisco hopes that a customer can justify this new purchase on the basis that Conductor will hopefully better utilize the legacy architecture resources. Cisco realizes that without Conductor this nightmare is not sustainable as administrators face increased demand for more multiparty connections as users move to personal communication devices.
What is most surprising is that Cisco views these announcements as wonderful news for the industry! Putting a Band-Aid on Cisco's high cost, high complexity, multipoint infrastructure with additional costly add-ons is not something most companies would proudly announce. But Cisco must view that with enough positive spin, customers will continue to be happy to buy Cisco, and pay more knowing that they are making the SAFE choice. But beware, not everyone plays CiscoVille (apologies to Zynga if this analogy is upsetting)
Marty Hollander is Vidyo's Senior Vice President, Market Development. With more than 20 years of high-tech marketing experience, Marty specializes in developing lasting strategic assets through creative market development. Previously, Marty served as Vice President of Marketing at Cemaphore Systems, Latitude Communications (later acquired by Cisco) and ProactiveNet (later acquired by BMC). He also founded CollectiveSpace and IntelliCorp, where he played a variety of executive roles. Marty has also held senior level positions at Silicon Graphics and Storm Technology. Marty earned an MBA from Stanford University as well as an MS from Carnegie-Mellon University.


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Miguel Sierra / EPA
Federal authorities inspect the site of the plane crash in El Tejote locality, Nuevo Leon State, Mexico, where Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera along with six other people died as they were travelling from Monterrey, in northern Mexico, to Mexico City.
Updated 11:05 p.m. ET: Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera died in a plane crash Saturday night, her father and brother confirmed on Telemundo.
"She never gave up and she was good to everyone," said her father, Pedro, about his daughter's legacy outside of his home in Lakewood, Calif.
The wreckage of the plane was found Sunday in northern Mexico with no apparent survivors, authorities said.
The wreckage was found in the Ejido La Colorada, Municipality of Nuevo Leon. Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, secretary of communications and transport, said that the plane was not recognizable, but the evidence suggested it was the aircraft carrying the singer, Telemundo reported.
NBC Latino obituary: Jenni River dies at 43
Jim Urquhart / Reuters file
Singer Jenni Rivera, seen here during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in January, was aboard a plane that went missing shortly after leaving the northern Mexican city of Monterrey early Sunday.
Officials said Rivera's Learjet went off the radar about 62 miles from Monterrey after taking off at 3:15 a.m. local time.
The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched investigators to assist the government of Mexico in its investigation of the crash.
Rivera was heading for the city of Toluca in central Mexico after a concert in Monterrey on Saturday night. The singer, two pilots and four other passengers were aboard, Mexican officials said.
Jorge Domene, spokesman for Nuevo Leon's government told Milenio television that civilian agency helicopters flew over the state searching for the plane. The missing included her publicist, lawyer, makeup artist and the flight crew, the ministry of transportation and communication said in a statement.
In a photo posted on her Twitter account on Friday, Jenni Rivera can be seen referencing her concert in Monterrey. In the photo she is seen holding up a sign with the words, "Nos Vemos este 7 en Colima, 8-en Monterrey. I love you!" Translation: "See you this 7th in Colima, 8 in Monterrey."
Born in Long Beach, Calif., to Mexican immigrant parents, Rivera has sold some 15 million records in her career and won several awards and Grammy nominations, her website said.
The 43-year-old mother of five is renowned as an exponent of the Nortena and banda regional musical styles.
Jenni Rivera's driving license is seen of the ground at the crash site where a plane allegedly carrying Rivera crashed near Iturbide, Mexico, Dec. 9.
The so-called "Diva of the Banda" recently won two Billboard Mexican Music Awards: Female Artist of the Year and Banda Album of the Year for "Joyas prestadas: Banda." Her famous songs include "La Gran Senora" and "De Contrabando."
The singer, businesswoman and actress appeared in the movie "Filly Brown," as the incarcerated mother of Filly Brown, and has her own reality shows including "I Love Jenni" and "Jenni Rivera Presents: Chiquis and Raq-C" and her daughter's "Chiquis `n Control."
Rivera had given a concert before thousands of fans in Monterrey on Saturday night. After the concert she gave a press conference during which she spoke of her emotional state following her recent divorce from baseball player Esteban Loaiza.
"I can't get caught up in the negative because that destroys you. Perhaps trying to move away from my problems and focus on the positive is the best I can do. I am a woman like any other and ugly things happen to me like any other women," she said Saturday night, according to The Associated Press. "The number of times I have fallen down is the number of times I have gotten up."
A plane carrying Jenni Rivera, a popular singer from California, went missing in Mexico Saturday night. The 43-year-old mother of five is renowned for Nortena and banda music. NBC's Miguel Almaguer reports.
The mother and grandmother had announced in October that she was divorcing Loaiza after two years of marriage. It was her third marriage.
Rivera is the sister of Mexican singer Lupillo Rivera.
Celebrities tweeted about Rivera's disappearance.
"OMG! Just heard about @jennirivera Praying for her and her family during this difficult & uncertain time!" Gloria Estefan tweeted.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
More world stories from NBC News:
- Suspect in US envoy's killing in Libya arrested in Egypt
- DJs in prank call over royal birth suspended
- Climate talks end with deal that's 'not where we want to be'
- PhotoBlog: Hero's welcome for Hamas leader back from exile
- Secretary of state talk opens Rice to criticism -- from left
- Video: Penguins in Tokyo take over as Santa's elves


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Dairy Farm of the Year namedPHOTO BY LEN EMERY
Vermont Dairy Farm of Year owner Heidi Dolloff of Dolloff Acres Farm in Springfield shows off the 80-cow herd of prize-winning registered Holsteins that she and her husband Mike own.
SPRINGFIELD A Springfield farm has been named Vermont Dairy Farm of the Year.
The award has been presented to Dolloff Acres Farm by the University of Vermont Extension and the Vermont Dairy Industry Association in cooperation with the New England Green Pastures Program.
Mike and Heidi Dolloffs operation milks 80 cows twice a day. The herd averages 24,000 pounds of milk with 4.3 percent butterfat and 3.2 percent protein, which officials say can be attributed to excellent herd management practices, quality feed and selective breeding.
They are a testament that small 80-cow dairies can not only survive in Vermont, but be profitable as well if they are as well-managed as this farm, said Tony Kitsos, state coordinator for UVM Extensions Farm Viability Enhancement Program and coordinator for the awards program. The judges were particularly impressed with how well they had built their assets up in just 17 years.
The farm has earned numerous milk quality awards from the Dairy Farmers of America Cooperative and has received Vermont Dairy Herd Improvement Association awards for somatic cell counts in their milk and production.MORE IN World/National BusinessWASHINGTON Long-term U.S. Full StoryNEW YORK Its not just the musical Hairspray that will air live on NBC tonight. Full StoryOXON HILL, Md. Far from the Las Vegas Strip, MGM Resorts International opens its $1. Full Story
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