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Special Report on HR Technology Tracking the Contingents
With the use of temps and other contingent workers on the rise, more companies are adopting software to control labor costs and better manage this segment of their workforces.
The time has come, it seems, for software to manage temps and other contingent workers.
As companies ramp up their use of staffing agency labor during the economic recovery and seek a better handle on their total workforce spending, they also are turning to software products called vendor management systems.
A report last year by research firm Staffing Industry Analysts (a sister company of Workforce Management) found that the percentage of companies using a vendor management system jumped from 34 percent in 2007 to 63 percent in 2009. Staffing Industry Analysts also predicted that the rate would climb to 81 percent in 2011.
Experts say the products have room to improve, especially when it comes to helping companies get a better bead on particular contingent workers.
But the tools, from vendors such as Provade, IQNavigator and Fieldglass, promise to help firms control contingent labor costs and comply with regulations at a time when the Obama administration is beefing up scrutiny of employee misclassification. Throw in the fact that the use of vendor management systems typically is paid for by staffing vendors rather than end-user companies, and conditions are ripe for a big increase in adoption.
"We've gone from a glacial pace to this incredible acceleration in just the last two years," says Sara Moss, president of The Code Works, a technology consulting firm focused on the staffing and recruiting industry.
VMS virtues
Vendor management systems have been around since at least the 1990s. Initially the tools were focused on helping companies request, select and track temporary workers coming from staffing vendors—hence "vendor" management systems. And the products continue to play this role. VMS software automates the "req to check" process, with capabilities such as job requisition templates, approval requests, distribution of the requisition to staffing suppliers, assignment letters, time sheets and invoices.
Over the years, VMS products have broadened in scope to cover more types of contingent workers. The systems now can help manage independent contractors and workers associated with "statement of work" deals. The latter refers to employees at outsourcing firms such as IT services providers or accounting firms.
Vendor management systems often are used in conjunction with "managed service providers." These are firms that offer to oversee a company's use of contingent workers. Managed service providers, such as Manpower, Adecco and Guidant Group, may have their own software for keeping tabs on contingent labor. An MSP also might employ a separate VMS.
(To enlarge the view, click on the image below. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required.)
It makes good sense to combine a vendor management system with a managed service provider, says Chris Dwyer, analyst with research firm Aberdeen Group. He recently conducted a study examining companies' ability to save money on contingent labor, to fill positions quickly and to comply with regulations. Of those companies in the top 20 percent on these measures—the "best in class" organizations—54 percent used a vendor management system and 66 percent used a managed service provider. Of all other companies in the 190-firm study, just 36 percent used an MSP and 35 percent a vendor management system.
Companies employing managed service providers are more likely to have standardized contract labor management processes and to actively gauge their contingent labor suppliers on quality and performance, Dwyer says.
A big attraction of vendor management systems, Dwyer says, is that they help companies home in on how much they pay for temps and other contingent workers. Currently, companies track just 43 percent of overall spending on contingent labor, his study found. In addition, he says, VMS tools help companies use preferred vendor relationships to procure higher-quality candidates.
"VMS users have reduced their time-to-fill rates by 34 percent while achieving 37 percent higher cost savings than non-VMS users," Dwyer wrote in his October report.
An appealing feature of vendor management systems is that companies frequently do not have to spend money on them directly. They often are "supplier-financed," says Jim Holincheck, analyst with research firm Gartner. A company might pay for the costs to implement the software, but then its staffing vendors connected to the system are charged fees based on the amount of contingent labor spending they receive.
The supplier-financed model means it is easy for a company to adopt a VMS without having a large amount of spending on contingent labor, Holincheck says. "You can start small," he says.
Thus far, the interest in vendor management systems has been limited to firms that spend at least $30 million a year on contingent labor, Holincheck says. That's not a lot for large companies, he says, given that some organizations manage as much as $1 billion in contingent labor costs through VMS tools.
A workforce shift
More and more companies may hit the $30 million threshold or otherwise decide they are ready to adopt the software, given the ongoing shift to just-in-time workforce strategies. For years, experts have forecast that companies would come to rely on contingent labor to a much greater extent. Workforce Management's 2008 project "HR 2018" asked experts to look 10 years into the future to predict workforce trends. One of the top-ranking forecasts was: "Firms will become adept at sourcing and engaging transient talent around short-term needs, and will focus considerable energy on the long-term retention of smaller core talent groups."
Government data analyzed by Staffing Industry Analysts indicate the switch to more of a contingent workforce strategy is well under way. The number of paid employees at temporary help services firms climbed 27 percent from 2002 to 2007, to 3 million. By contrast, total nonfarm employment in the U.S. rose just 6 percent from December 2002 to December 2007, to 138 million.
Although staffing employment still makes up a small fraction of the total U.S. workforce, companies are turning to temporary workers at a rapid pace as they try to climb out of the economic downturn. In a pattern typical during recoveries, employment in temporary help services has jumped in recent months. It rose by 284,000 from September to February, to 2 million.
Tapping staffing agency temporary workers, independent contractors and part-time employees can save companies money and increase agility in today's uncertain economy. But the shift to a nontraditional workforce raises a host of challenges. These include identifying and retaining the best contingent workers as well as complying with various regulations.
Among these is a set of rules and risks concerning "co-employment." Use of staff-ing firm temps can create a co-employment relationship, triggering rules including Family and Medical Leave Act provisions.
Another key compliance arena is employee misclassification, which refers to cases when businesses wrongly treat workers as independent contractors rather than as employees.
Companies may be tempted to categorize a worker as a contractor because they don't have to pay Social Security, Medicare and unemployment taxes on wages, and aren't constrained by overtime rules. A federally commissioned study a decade ago found that 10 to 30 percent of firms audited in nine states misclassified at least some employees.
In his 2011 budget proposal, President Barack Obama laid out a plan for the U.S. departments of Labor and Treasury to have increased power to penalize employers that misclassify workers. The budget also calls for $25 million for the Labor Department to hire 100 more enforcement personnel and for grants to boost states' incentives and capacity to tackle the problem.
Figuring out whether a worker is genuinely an independent contractor isn't an exact science. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service advises companies wrestling with the issue to consider a number of factors, including whether the company controls what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job.
A number of software tools promise to help companies with compliance issues. Fieldglass, for example, says its vendor management system can incorporate company and government regulatory policies. Beeline, which is a unit of Adecco, says its VMS product can help enforce and monitor co-employment and regulatory compliance. There's also software from Agile-1 called AccelerationICC, which is designed to automate the process for qualifying independent contractors.
A number of other software providers apart from VMS vendors offer to help manage contingent workers. Kronos, for example, says staffing agency nurses can be entered into its scheduling software system to help health care organizations abide by regulations from industry group The Joint Commission.
Kronos also says its hiring software can assist organizations that bring on many seasonal workers. Its candidate assessment system is designed to weed out applicants likely to be less reliable, based on the test answers and attendance records of workers hired earlier.
IBM sells workforce analytic software that can be used to do such things as monitor the performance of contingent workers and track their tenure, says Farhana Alarakhiya, director of IBM Cognos Analytic Applications. "We're able to drive smarter workforce decisions regardless of whether it's a contingent employee or a full-time-equivalent employee," Alarakhiya says.
VMS tools also can keep tabs on performance. Software from Guidant Group, for example, can gather reports from managers on how well contract workers did on their assignments. And the tool can give clients a ranking based on performance scores, says Kevin Moran, vice president of implementations and technology solutions for Guidant Group. Edward Jackson, CEO of Provade, says his firm's software contains "actionable analytics." It will send out alerts if, for example, a staffing vendor or an individual temp gets a certain number of poor ratings.
Jackson also touts Provade's tight relationship with business software giant Oracle. Because of that relationship, Provade software is closely integrated "out of the box" with Oracle and PeopleSoft applications such as procurement and human resource management system products.
Consultant Moss says the Provade-Oracle connection is promising. Theoretically, she says, it could a help a company that decides to slow down its manufacturing volume to immediately put the brakes on temp hiring for the shop floor.
Still, she and others see shortcomings in software for managing contingent workers. Moss says VMS tools tend not to use sophisticated matching technology for pairing individual candidates from staffing firms with job openings. Vendor management systems "could improve if they point the hiring manager to the best candidate," she says. "There can be a real flood of submittals."
More detailed data
The current class of software also does not do much to track the individual skills and preferences of contingent workers. Such data will become increasingly important if companies continue to rely more heavily on a free-agent workforce. Holincheck of Gartner says he foresees VMS products collecting more information about contractors over time, but notes that too much attention to contingent workers increases co-employment risks.
"That's going to be a definite tension," he says.
Peopleclick Authoria, which offers both a VMS tool and talent management software, is working to mesh its systems in order to improve the way companies hire contractors on as regular employees and bring back former employees as contractors.
Tom Tisdale, Peopleclick Authoria's general manager of VMS, says his firm wants to make it possible to quickly import a person's history as a contractor into a company's talent management system when he or she is brought on as an employee. Conversely, Peopleclick Authoria is planning to let a person's record as an employee inform his or her record as a contractor later on.
"It's all about continuous improvement of the talent profile," Tisdale says.
By analyzing data more extensively, companies will be able to make wiser choices about such matters as whether to hire regular employees for a project or turn to outside contractors, Tisdale says.
Information about the time needed to hire particular kinds of workers and about how a skill set fits into long-term company plans could help firms make such calls, he says.
That's "when it gets exciting," Tisdale says.
Workforce Management, April 2010, p. 27-33 — Subscribe Now!


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Explore the history and collections of the Smithsonian Institution with these illustrated museum books and field guides. Full of beautiful photography, these fully illustrated references offer insight and information from Smithsonian scientists and curators on topics ranging from the gardens of the Smithsonian to the National Gem Collection.
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A good cycling jacket can make all the difference on a rainy or windy day. High Tech fabrics like Gore Windstopper excel in the worst conditions, while a reliable softshell jacket is your best friend in the cold.
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Nursing Home Communities in each legislative district made videos for their legislators!
Keep up the conversation!
Legislators can make a video response for the nursing home communities in their district. Visit the north hallway of the Rotunda during National Nursing Home Week on Wednesday May 11 or Thursday May 12.
Schedule a time to come to the photo booth. Contact Andy Chusid at email@example.com or call (773) 490-7658.
Sen. Bertino-Tarrant - Don't Forget Us!


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Every Friday, Sporting News' Ryan Fagan will take a deeper look at the players making on-the-field headlines—both good and bad—with the help of advanced baseball metrics. Unless otherwise specified, statistics have been gathered from baseball-reference.com and fangraphs.com, two thoroughly indispensable websites.
This week, we'll look at three surprising players ranked in the top 10 of Fangraphs WAR for the second half of the season—Will Venable (fourth, 2.3), Juan Lagares (sixth, 2.1) and Jason Castro (tied for 10th, 1.9)—and try to pinpoint what they're doing so well after the All-Star break. (Note: All stats through Thursday)
Will Venable, Padres
Venable is what you'd call, in baseball terms, a late bloomer. He didn't make his MLB debut until he was 25, and now, in his sixth year with the Padres, Venable should set a career high with his 418th at-bat of the season this weekend against the Rockies. For the season, he's batting .275 (career high) with 20 homers (career high), 50 RBI (one away from career high) and an .819 OPS (career high). On Sept. 3, the Padres gave Venable a two-year, $8.5 million extension that covers his final two arbitration-eligible years.
The stat: .417 BABIP
What BABIP isn't: Big, Bad Icelandic People
What BABIP is: Batting Average on Balls In Play. Essentially, what percentage of balls put in play wind up as hits? This is a tricky stat, one that's better used in conjunction with other numbers than used as a stand-alone to determine absolutes. Luck has as much to do with this stat as defense; remember, smoked line drives right at defenders count as outs, while dribblers down the third base line can go for hits. As a point of reference, the MLB-average BABIP this season is .297.
What this means: In the second half, Venable is hitting .352 with nine home runs, seven stolen bases and a .431 wOBA (weighted on-base average). Venable's second-half BABIP is kind of insane, and behind only Mike Trout (.474) and Castro (.447, and more on him in a moment). Venable's first-half BABIP was well below the MLB average, at .253. So what is the deal with this elevated number?
Let's look a little deeper, at the types of balls Venable is putting in play.
His line drive percentage (a self-explanatory stat) after the break is 24.0 percent; before the break it was just 18.0 percent. Obviously, a line drive has a much better chance of falling safely than any other type of batted ball, so this is a big factor in his BABIP. His ground-ball percentage has stayed stable (47.8 to 47.1), but his fly-ball percentage has dropped (34.3 to 28.9). And here's the other side of that—his HR/FB rate has jumped up from 18.0 in the first half to 25.7 in the second half. So, essentially, he's hitting fewer fly balls (which often go for outs), but a higher percentage of those fly balls are going over the fence. Home runs are the only BABIP-related absolutes a batter can control; they cannot be affected by a defense.
Juan Lagares, Mets
Lagares signed with the Mets as a 17-year-old amateur free agent, then spent the next seven years working his way through the system. He finally made his MLB debut on April 23 this year, then took over the starting job in center field in June. He's one of the best defensive outfielders in the majors—his prowess with the glove was never doubted—but his offensive production has been a welcome surprise for Mets fans. Lagares was hitting just .146 through his first 25 games, but in 74 games since then he's batting .291.
The stat: 26.9 UZR/150
What UZR/150 isn't: Ultimate Zebra Racing
What UZR/150 is: Ultimate Zone Rating. UZR/150 uses data from Baseball Info Solutions and is an attempt to measure a player's total defensive value. For an outfielder, UZR/150 uses factors like a player's range, the amount of runs he prevents with his arm and whether he commits more or fewer errors than an average defender at his position. The /150 is scaling the numbers to reflect a 150-game sample, which allows for comparisons between players with different numbers of games played. It's helpful for a player like Lagares, who has only played 99 games this season. As a point of reference, Franklin Gutierrez's 29.0 UZR/150 in 2009 is the best mark for an outfielder during the past decade.
What this means: Scouts have long raved about Lagares' defense, but the Mets turned to the 24-year-old only after they'd exhausted most other options. Six other players started games in center before Lagares locked down the position—Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Rick Ankiel, Collin Cowgill, Jordany Valdespin, Eric Young and Marlon Byrd.
Among center fielders with at least 600 innings at the position, Lagares' 26.9 UZR/150 is second only to Arizona's A.J. Pollock (who's at 36.9). That defensive performance is the driving force behind Lagares' lofty WAR, but he's also been an asset on the base paths, and (as mentioned), no slouch at the plate. In the second half, he's hitting .297 with a .344 on-base percentage, three homers and five stolen bases.
Jason Castro, Astros
In his age 26 season, Castro has become the type of catcher the Astros envisioned when they took him with the 10th overall pick out of Stanford in the 2008 draft. He was Houston's lone representative at the All-Star Game this summer, though he's actually been much better at the plate in the second half. For the season, he's batting .287 with 18 homers, 56 RBI and an impressive .852 OPS.
The stat: 15.0 BB%
What BB% isn't: Big Brownie percentage
What BB% is: Walk Percentage. It's the percentage of plate appearances in which a batter draws a walk (intentional or unintentional). For a point of reference, the MLB average this season is 7.9 percent.
What this means: There are three true outcomes (absolutes not affected by the defense) a hitter can produce with each plate appearance—drawing a walk, striking out or hitting a home run—and Castro has significantly upped his numbers in all three of those categories in the second half. The increase in strikeout percentage, from 23.7 to 31.4, isn't a good thing, but it's offset by his increased HR/FB rate, from 15.2 to 23.1 and a walk percentage that's almost doubled, from 8.2 to 15.0. As a result, Castro's slash line in the second half is .310/.412/.543, after posting a .269/.331/.475 line before the break.


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G-H Sells 27 Multifamily Buildings in Two Months
LIVINGSTON, NJ-Demand for multifamily buildings is at peak by investors, says Gebroe-Hammer's Ken Uranowitz, whose company sold more than two dozen buildings recently.
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Multifamily Leads NOI Growth in CMBS
Although its year-over-year improvement in NOI was lower for 2016 compared to 2015, the apartment sector was still ahead of all others by a comfortable margin, Fitch Ratings said Friday.
Chicago A Likely Prospect for Amazon
The West Loop in particular, now home to Google and the future home of McDonald's, seems tailor-made for the online giant.
5 Questions for Nicole Urquhart-Bradley
At the helm of Cushman & Wakefield's Valuation & Advisory practice for the Americas, Urquhart-Bradley talks about the ebb and flow of investment capital and the impact of global investment on the U.S. property market among other things in this EXCLUSIVE Q&A.
What the Increase in Co-Borrowing Means for Residential
More co-borrowing is a creative way the marketplace is responding to the affordability crunch, and it is helping to sustain the housing boom—but there are drawbacks, ATTOM Data's Daren Blomquist tells GlobeSt.com.


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Five dairies were named platinum winners for reproductive excellence at the Dairy Cattle Reproduction Council annual meeting last November.
The dairies are: Collins Dairy, of Greenleaf, Wis.; Dutchland Dairy, of Rolfe, Iowa; Kloppe Dairy Farm, of New Haven, Mo.; Schilling Farms LLC, of Darlington, Wis., and Sunburst Dairy, of Belleville, Wis.
Now in its fourth year, the reproduction awards program received 54 competitive nominations from 17 states and three countries.
Herd data for all nominees were analyzed by a panel of experts and an independent analytic program. The analyses evaluated raw data on every cow that calved on the dairy during the 2011 calendar year.
The winners share some of the things they are doing.
Tell us about your reproductive program.
Collins Dairy: It starts with a 75-day voluntary waiting period (VWP), with all cows set up to be bred between 72 and 79 days in milk and all cows checked to see if they are synchronized by our veterinarian when prebreeding prostaglandin is given. We use a basic two-dose prostaglandin presynchronization program with the two doses given 14 days apart and a 14-day period before the start of the Ovsynch protocol. We have one of our artificial insemination (AI) technicians tail chalk the breeding pens once daily. We have him hold off on breeding animals until after their first timed service. This method has been very effective as he can focus in on finding repeat breeders 21 days after a timed A.I. He has been able to maintain 44 percent conception while breeding 25 percent of the herd to standing heats. We use the Ovsynch protocol for timed A.I. for 75 percent of our breedings.
Dutchland Dairy: We follow a 60-day VWP. Heifers are bred at 13 months of age. We use a two-dose presynch protocol, then start Ovsynch 12 days later. We use tail chalk for heat detection and feel it has worked well for us. We use the Ovsynch program and preg-check cows between 30 to 36 days. Open cows are then started on an Ovsynch program for resynchronization.
Kloppe Dairy Farm: Our veterinarian does a post-calving check on cows and first-calf heifers 30 days postpartum. We begin breeding at 55 days in milk or anytime thereafter when the animal has a good standing heat. We begin breeding heifers at 14 months of age as long as the animals are healthy and in good condition. Any cows late in the VWP with a cyst are given GnRH seven days prior to a prostaglandin, hopefully detected in heat and bred. We breed exclusively on standing heats, using heat detection patches as a heat detection aid on cows. Cows are observed twice each day, for 15 minutes each time. One time daily, we compare the heat list to the stickers on the animals to make sure they are still in place and to observe any changes. Any cow that is not seen in heat before 60 days in milk is enrolled in a synchronization program that includes two doses of prostaglandin 14 days apart. Cows are then bred six to 10 hours after standing heat. If a cow does not come into heat, she is given a dose of GnRH 14 days after the second prostaglandin, followed by prostaglandin seven days later, GnRH two days after that and bred the next day. Cows are observed for heats three times per day. All cows are bred by A.I.
Schilling Farms: We follow a 70-day VWP for mature cows and an 80-day VWP for first-calf heifers. All cows are given a prostaglandin at 21 to 24 days in milk to help clear up metritis/endometritis. Cows are tail painted with detail paint and walked every day by our A.I. team. Heifers have heat detection patches applied prebreeding and then are painted when confirmed pregnant. The heifers are also observed while restrained in headlocks once per day. Lactating cows are all bred on an Ovsynch 48-hour program for first service.
Sunburst Dairy: We have a 70- to 75-day VWP for cows in all lactations. Heifers are bred at 13 months of age. We use a double-Ovsynch protocol that we began using in 2008. One week prior to the first pregnancy check at 42 days, all animals are enrolled into a resynch program. We used CIDRs for third breedings and beyond. Cows are visually observed for heat. Cows with CIDRs are tail chalked. We use a double Ovsynch and resynch program for the cows. All cows are enrolled unless they are coded do not breed.
What advice do you have for producers looking to improve herd reproduction?
Collins Dairy: Feed good feedstuffs, maintain comfortable facilities with good flooring and regularly meet with your veterinarian and farm staff to stay on track.
Dutchland Dairy: Be on a reproductive (synch) program you and your veterinarian are confident in. Stick with it. Be consistent with your protocol and follow it.
Kloppe Dairy: Focus on maintaining good records and building a good relationship with your veterinarian to keep cow health top-of-mind.
Schilling Farms: Cow comfort, cooling, nutrition and fresh cow management are essential for a successful reproductive program. All four factors depend on each other for a successful breeding system. In addition, having set protocols and routines for synching and resynching has helped maintain excellent compliance essential to reproductive success. Find breeding companies that you feel comfortable with and that will spend adequate time monitoring the cows for heat.
Sunburst Dairy: Use your resources. Work with consultants, veterinarians and university/extension experts. Use your consultants to help you evaluate routines and listen to and follow suggestions. Work with your A.I. company on reproduction and A.I. solutions, and have a good team of employees that follow SOPs because timeliness is everything. Conduct ongoing reviews of protocols. Cow comfort is essential — evaluate barn layout or remodel barn layout for cow comfort if necessary. Monitor cow health and feed intakes. Do not overcrowd, handle cattle calmly and keep good records.


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The goal of a heifer nutrition program is to allow each calf the opportunity to maximize nutrient intake of protein and energy in the appropriate ratio in order to optimize its growth rate, health and future productivity, without over-conditioning.
A good nutrition program accompanied by timely management practices is critical to the success of reaching that goal. After all, these are the tools that enable a calf to reach its genetic potential and enter the milking herd at the proper size and maturity to reach peak lactation performance.
However, seasonal challenges like heat stress can quickly derail nutrition programs if dairies don't take timely steps to keep programs on track.
Heat stress struggles
For example, as with adult animals during periods of heat stress, calf feed intake drops and maintenance energy needed for the calf to help cool itself is estimated to increase by 20% to 30%.1
Heat stress puts calves in a catch-22 situation.
Calves are uncomfortable due to the high temperatures and that causes a reduction in feed intake, according to experts at Alabama A&M University. At the same time, calves' bodies require more maintenance to cool them off-which often results in a decrease in average daily gain.2
Calves sometimes experience compensatory growth that allows them to "catch up," but if they are neglected during critical times-such as during heat stress-they may not experience this growth spurt. The reduced growth rates can haunt you later in your calves' lives by increasing time to puberty, delaying breeding and increasing calving age.2
In addition, although calves may experience compensatory gain at a later age, their body composition will differ from calves with normal growth patterns. The calves that did not gain weight properly will be smaller in stature with a higher percentage of body fat. Higher growth rates the first 50 days of life set the stage for better feed efficiency and production while lowering the risk of adverse health events.
Management solutions
Use the following tips to help minimize heat stress effects to calves and keep your nutrition program-and heifer growth-on target this summer:
- Increase water availability to prevent dehydration and perhaps increase starter intake. Use solid dividers between buckets to prevent water from being slopped into the bucket containing the starter ration. Replace soiled water frequently and provide fresh grain daily.2
- Make housing adjustments and other changes that lower the ambient temperature to help prevent elevated calf temperatures. If housed outdoors, calves should be able to move out of the elements and away from drafts.3
- Perform stressful activities (such as moving, handling or vaccinating) early in the morning.
- Provide shade to hutches-add supplemental shading if needed.
- Promote good airflow in and around hutches. In enclosed facilities, if natural cross-ventilation is not possible, then a total air exchange every two minutes through a mechanized system is a must.3
- Control flies. Implement practices to breakup fly life cycles.


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George Parros revealed to be twin brother of superstar Yanni
November 30 2007 10:47AM
OilersNation, AB—Fresh from breaking the worldwide scandal that Oiler Allan Rourke is the child of actor Mickey Rourke, Director of OilersNation Geneology Dr John Bednarski has discovered Anaheim Duck George Parros is in fact the twin brother of legendary performing artist Yanni.
"If he isn't related, I can't think of any reason why he would grow out his hair, and sport that greasy moustache," explains Bednarski
OilersNation staff contacted the Yanni Fan Club for comment but were told by a startled telephone operator that "this line hasn't rung in years. I have no idea how to get in touch with Yanni."
That is hilarious. Better than the first one


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Today we reveal just how dangerous Oxfordshire's "hell's drive" is.
There have been 21 fatal collisions involving 22 motorcyclists, drivers and pedestrians who have lost their lives on the A420 since 2002.
Most recently, vet Rachael Jackson, 25, from Lyne Road, Kidlington, died near Buckland after the van she was driving was involved in a collision with a lorry on April 4.
Less than a week later, the same stretch of road was closed for several hours after a blue Toyota Yaris and a white Mitsubishi Canter collided, injuring two people on April 10.
In total there have been 363 fatal, serious or minor crashes on the A420 in the past 10 years.
Oxfordshire-based road safety expert Dan Campsall pointed to the fact that many of the crashes were clustered around junctions, which he said was to be expected on busy commuter routes.
He added: "traffic emerging from side roads, increased danger from overtaking or travelling at very different speeds all adds to the challenge that drivers face on roads like the A420."
Although there is no suggestion that any of the recent crashes were down to speed, people living along the route feel slowing drivers down would help improve safety.
Lynne Cane, landlady at the Hinds Head pub, in Kingston Bagpuize, said: "They call it hell's drive.
"There isn't a speed camera along our stretch. It might help to put one there, or maybe more roundabouts."
And Mandy Scott, who works at Buckland Primary School and uses the road regularly because she lives just outside Faringdon, agreed the road was dangerous.
She said: "We've got two children, aged 11 and 12, who need to cross the road in the mornings and evenings. We have to send an adult with them, because it's just not safe enough, which is difficult with work.
"There are always stones on the road. When a lorry drives past they can flick up.
"Sometimes cars will stop to let you cross, but it's two lanes, so you don't know if the next car will stop. It's too dangerous for a child to see, but it's not the car's job to stop.
"A crossing there would be great. Cameras would help, because it would only slow people down.
"You can't stop the traffic, but lots of problems are caused by overtaking, so maybe putting down solid white lines in would help."
At Buckland Primary School road safety is also a concern, with 60 per cent of pupils travelling from outside the village, most using the A420.
Headteacher Louise Warren said deaths on the road had an impact on pupils at the school.
She said: "Emotionally, it's very difficult for some of the children in the village. Some parents try to keep their children away from that end of the village.
"Certainly a crossing would help slow the traffic down – the cars move very fast.
"Fortunately, in my time, there have been no incidents involving the children."
Kevin Clinton, the head of road safety at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (Rospa), said: "Driving in rural areas, even on high-quality A-roads, is more dangerous than driving in urban areas: 40 per cent of road deaths occur on rural A-roads.
"In 2010, 657 people lost their lives on A-roads in rural areas, compared with 307 people on A-roads in urban areas.
"The higher speeds on these roads give people less time to react and result in more severe impacts, that all too often prove to be fatal."
Casualty figures: Accidents on the A420 in Oxfordshire in the past 10 years:
Fatal 21, with 22 people dead.
Serious 58.
Slight 285.
Total: 363


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Distillation Control and Optimization Part 6
Model-based multivariable controls or artificial neural networks can reap optimization rewards for complex towers with many constraints.
By Béla Lipták
Globally, more than 80 million barrels of crude oil are refined daily. The amount of energy used for distillation is approximately 8% of the total energy used in the industrial sector of the United States. American refineries spend 50 to 60 percent of their operating costs (i.e., excluding capital costs and depreciation) on energy, in Venezuela, Russia and the Middle East that number is even higher, about 70%. Compared to refineries, the much more advanced chemical industry spends only 30 to 40%. This difference shows the savings that can be obtained just by implementing the state-of-the-art controls and optimization described in this series.
A model-based, multivariable control system requires the development of dynamic models based upon fractionator testing and data collection. These dynamic models predict future fractionator performance based on the memorized past performance. Model-based multivariable control can be valuable for towers that are complex, subject to many constraints and experience severe interactions.
In the case of well-understood processes, such as distillation, the material and heat balance relationships are combined into this overall dynamic model. Once a process model has been established, the controller is simply the inverse of that model. In this sense, the PID controller is a linear inverse model of a single loop. A simple internal model-based controller (IMC) is shown at the bottom of Figure 1. It has the same structure as the Smith predictor described in the first part of this series of articles, which consists of a first-order system with dead time in combination with a PI controller. (See Part 1, Control, November, 2006, p. 16)
In this case, the two towers have two products and an impurity stream. The objective is to control the composition of both products and therefore, when an adjustment is made in response to an upset in the composition of one, that manipulation tends to cause a disturbance in the operation of the other composition loop. In this example, the MVC controls the two product compositions, while keeping the operation within the constraints of the process equipment capacities and makes its corrections while considering the dead time introduced by the stripper.
In this process, the feed flow rate is the main disturbance variable. The steam to the first column and the temperature at the top of that column are the manipulated variables. A constraint variable is the internal reflux flow, which is calculated from the tower temperatures and flows.
Dynamic Matrix Control (DMC) is another MVC technique using a set of linear differential equations to describe the process. The DMC method obtains its data from the response of the column to upsets, and after the model is so obtained, calculates the required manipulations utilizing an inverse model. Coefficients for the linear equations describing the process dynamics are determined by actual testing. During these tests, manipulated and load variables are perturbed and their dynamic responses are observed. This identification procedure is time-consuming and requires substantial local expertise.
Artificial Neural Networks (ANN)
Figure 2 shows a three-layer, back-propagation ANN, which predicts the manipulated steam and reflux flows of a column. The process model is stored by the way its processing elements (nodes) are connected and by the importance that is assigned to each node (weight). The ANN is trained by example and, therefore, it contains the adaptive mechanism for learning from examples. During the training of these networks, the weights are adjusted until the output of the ANN matches that of the real process. Naturally, when process conditions change, the network requires retraining. The hidden layers help the network to generalize and even to memorize.
In the single-input/single-output (SISO) configuration, the ANN network builds an internal nonlinear model relating the controlled and manipulated variables. It builds this model by learning or training, based on a data set of past measurements and process responses. This makes the neural controller more useful and more robust than the standard PID.
Because the neural network paradigm can accommodate multiple inputs and outputs, an entire fractionator model can be built into a single controller. The neural controller can be thought of in the same terms as model-based control algorithms, whereby the neural network is used to obtain the inverse of the process model. As shown on the top right of Figure 2, the back-propagation network can be trained to behave as an inverse model of the process, with load and controlled variables being input and output vectors.
To build such a model, all inputs and outputs must be normalized based upon expected minimum and maximum values and presented to the network during training. By using such historical data, the network is trained and a nonlinear internal model is created. The networks ability to do the prediction of the dynamics of the fractionator improves as more data become available for training. Thus, the neural controller is a type of nonlinear, multivariable, model-based control algorithm. The difference is,that, instead of creating the nonlinear process model with explicit equations, the neural controller builds its own process model based on the actual operation of the tower.
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Marin County officials have low-balled the county's pension debt and should be pumping twice as much money into the system as they are, according to a Mendocino County financial analyst, pension critic, website and newsletter publisher.
The bottom line, according to John Dickerson, head of www.your publicmoney.com, is that the county has mounted roughly $425 million in "real pension expenses ... it never reported to the people."
Dickerson said that under rigorous new credit rating rules announced by Moody's, the credit rating agency, Civic Center's pension debt alone, not including unfunded retiree health care costs, is about $745 million, twice the county's claim.
Even so, Dickerson's assertions fall far short of a 2010 study by Stanford academics headed by former Marin Assemblyman Joe Nation, which concluded the unfunded debt of Marin's system topped $2 billion. The county system covers the Civic Center, the city of San Rafael, Novato and Southern Marin fire agencies, and several other special districts.
Dickerson said the pension program approved by county supervisors should be funded at $100 million a year, rather than $50 million.
He will be the keynote speaker at a pension forum sponsored by Citizens for Sustainable Pension Plans at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Four Points Sheraton, 1010 Northgate Drive in San Rafael.
Moody's has concluded that local governments minimize the credit risks created by unfunded pension debt and has proposed rating adjustments that could make credit more expensive. Among adjustments by Moody's is a plan to calculate taxpayer pension debt based on a 5.5 percent bond investment rate — instead of the optimistic 7.5 percent pension investment return assumed by Marin. Sonoma and several other Bay Area counties studied by Dickerson, all with systems independent of the state CalPERS program, are in more trouble because they use pension earnings assumptions of 7.75 to 7.9 percent, Dickerson contends.
County pension chief Jeff Wickman, who will attend the San Rafael presentation on Thursday, isn't buying Dickerson's alarming analysis. Wickman noted Moody's proposal "does not change the existing laws and assumptions used by the retirement system to determine plan assets and liabilities, and therefore would not change the current contributions required by employers to fund the plans."
Wickman said that Moody's "proposes using different methods, including a lower discount rate, to value state and local government pension liabilities for their purpose of determining a government entity's financial position relative to others." He added the Marin system "retains the ability to adjust the economic assumptions used to determine the financing of the retirement plan."
Dickerson, who holds an MBA from the University of Texas, noted Marin is doing better than the others studied, including Mendocino and and Contra Costa counties, where unfunded pension debt is "more than twice the total value of their assets."
Contact Nels Johnson via email at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him at twitter.com/nelsjohnsonnews
Pension critic John Dickerson will be the keynote speaker at a pension forum sponsored by Citizens for Sustainable Pension Plans at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Four Points Sheraton at 1010 Northgate Drive in Terra Linda.


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Frequently Asked Questions
Back to Frequently Asked Questions main page
How can I report crime tips?
If you have information about a crime, witnessed a crime, or have overheard someone discussing participation in a crime, don't be afraid to report it. In fact, you could receive up to $1,000 for your anonymous tip.
Broward County residents have helped make BSO's CrimeStoppers unit consistently one of the nation's top performers. That means with the help of the community, more cases are solved, arrests are made, and property is recovered. Convictions as a result of crime stoppers tips range about 95%.
If you have information regarding a crime, call CrimeStoppers at (954) 493-TIPS or online at https://www.p3tips.com/tipform.aspx?ID=157. We won't ask for your name or for any information about you. There's no Caller ID. You remain completely anonymous. You'll be given a code number, and if your information leads to an arrest, that code number gets you the reward.
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ONCE a year, Avon Valley Runners invite members of other local clubs to take part in a friendly inter-club challenge – the Avon Valley Mob Match.
Match points are determined against finishing positions of runners belonging to the same club/sex up to the number of the lowest attending club, though a minimum of five runners per club are required.
This year, Chippenham Harriers and Corsham Running Club joined our members for the multi-terrain event which started at the Tythe Barn at Bradford on Avon.
The route of about seven miles follows the river Avon to Avoncliffe before heading towards Westwood, Iford Manor, through Friary Wood and briefly onto the A36 before turning back into the woods to the Tythe Barn finish.
Corsham's Stuart Henderson led almost 60 runners home with Avon Valley Runners' of Pete Veleski, Tim Lowrie and Will Holland hot on his heels.
Chippenham's Mark Clayton was next, followed by the hosts' Thomas Coney, Chippenham's Tom Smith and Richard Schofield with Corsham's Carl Zalek and Chippenham's Frank Checcia completing the top 10.
Avon Valley's Clare Howard was first lady with Corsham's Debra Kearsey and Gillian Sanders next and Chippenham's Catherine Dawes and Julie Trudgen completing first for their team.
Corsham Running Club were awarded the trophies for first male and female teams.


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Celebrate the season with Fall Party Supplies!
Deck your home or office in the trappings of fall with autumn-themed window and wall decorations, fall table decorations, and hanging banners customized with messages all you own.
Elegant pumpkin baskets, orange-tinted centerpieces, and autumn leaves confetti help set the table for a harvest dinner.
Carefully matched fall tableware and serving trays take the hassle out of entertaining and cleanup. Autumn-themed party kits offer a complete assortment of plates, cups, and utensils, hanging fall decorations, and more, so that you can serve up to 18 guests without fretting that you left something out when you made your purchase.
So for a fun and affordable autumn makeover, Party City is the place to start — a bountiful harvest of decorations, favors, costumes, and specialty gifts the whole family can enjoy!
Finally, party supplies to "fall" for!
Whether you're planning a small holiday dinner or a big fall party for all the gang, our fall party supplies and fall decorations make it easy to create an autumn mood.
Choose from any of our classic fall themes of tableware and autumn decor, like Fall Medley Party Supplies or Harvest Still Life Autumn Party Supplies, and add in our elegant chargers, platters, and serving bowls for a custom look.
Our deluxe fall party kits come with matching plates, napkins, table covers, cups, cutlery, table decorations, and more, so that you can artfully arrange your autumn decor in no time at all and get on with the party itself!


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See below for additional information and key links to important information regarding the RN to BSN Completion Program.
Below are links to all forms required once you are admitted to the RN to BSN
Completion Program. All of the other forms (Incident Form, Informed Consent,
Potential Disease Exposure Form, Refusal of Hepatitis B Form, Student Handbook
Sign-Off Sheet, Universal Precautions Training Acknowledgement, and Student
Health Form) are required along with a copy of your current RN license,
malpractice insurance, personal insurance and CPR card.
GSU has agreements with many area community colleges to help ensure proper transfer of courses. See link to Transfer Guides, below:
To help make your e-learning experience smooth and
successful, we've compiled a few resources you may find useful.
If you have never taken an online course before, you will first need to
prepare your computer.
Online classes are taught at GSU using an Internet platform known as Blackboard. We encourage you to take the Blackboard Student Tutorials; they provide valuable information and guidelines for the online
For a list of compatible browsers and plug-ins, please see Blackboard Help.
In addition to computer requirements, you will also discover the personal
characteristics, academic skills, and technical skills necessary to succeed in
online learning. If you're unsure about your online course readiness, take a moment for a Readiness Survey, prepared by GSU's Center for Online Teaching and Learning:
The GSU Student Orientation course allows you to experience Blackboard 9.1 and learn skills such as how to navigate
Blackboard, post discussions, send an email, and take a quiz. Once you have
completed the course, you will be prepared to participate fully in online
All GSU students are automatically enrolled in the orientation course.
You should be able to see the Blackboard 9.1 Orientation Course after you
login to your MYGSU portal. A link to the Orientation Course should be located
under the list of your personal courses. Click the title of the Blackboard
Orientation course, and you will arrive at the homepage.
Feel free to contact the Center for Online Teaching and Learning if
you have any questions or difficulties in preparing your computer for your
online course.
For additional information, contact:Paul
Blobaum, M.A., M.S.Full ProfessorCollege of Health and Human Services
Librarian LiaisonGovernors State University LibraryUniversity Park, IL
60484708.534.4139, firstname.lastname@example.com
MSN = 98.8% for AY16-17
BSN = 95.2% for AY16-17
DNP = 100% for AY16-17
MSN = 98% for AY16-17
BSN = 96% for AY16-17
DNP = 100% for AY16-17
MSN (FNP) = 92.5% for AY16-17


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A Dennis Blog (The Rock!)
by, 02-08-2013 at 02:37 AM (3805 Views)
Welcome to my first blog
`Hey, I have decided to start a blogging about random wrestling related issues that I think are currently prevalent with other members of the IWC. I will hit an issue in this blog and look forward to any feedback other members want to give me in order to make any future blogs better.
Why The Rock winning gold is a good thing.
`I'm not a rock lover, as most people might draw from the bolded statement. I think peoples blind love for superstars like Dolph Ziggler and Damien Sandow has made them forget some very essential things that Rock's reign could do for feuds in the wwe in the future.
1) Cena beating Rock would be Redemption
Cena talked up his match for an entire year. He lost and was a determining factor of why the face of the company looked super weak for really the entire year. I mean, one could argue that Cena still won Superstar of the year with some miracle, but lets look at reality. Cena lost every title match he had last year, or at least didn't finish the job. He lost a match he talked up for an entire year... Winning the rumble to then walk in and beat the man who started his downward spiral at mania would be nothing less than kayfabe total redemption.
2) The Rock will brings ratings.
This point is kind of obvious but for some of the members of the IWC who for some reason don't know much about raw ratings I will explain. The WWE was in a slump with punk as champion lately. The ratings were super low. I'm sure many members of the IWC would argue that it was competing with Monday Night Football but the ratings were very low. When the rock came back, The ratings shot off the roof. I can't recall the exact numbers but I think it was something like up 50 percent. I don't know how you could really argue against those ratings. I think people often forget that WWE's a business We are smarks I get that, but they need to make money to stay afloat... Don't hate on them for doing their jobs well.
3) Punk still looks strong.
I will go much further into this in my fourth point but this point stands on it's own merit. Punk didn't lose to Cena punk lost to the mega face that seems to be unbeatable. Punk still looks stronger than everyone else on the roster full time because he was able to hold their most prestigious belt for over 400 days. He is still the top heel with out even being around the title for the next couple of months if he does lose to the rock again.
4) Punk vs Cena would be a unpredictable feud.
Part of the problem with punk as champion was that you always had the feeling he was going to win. I mean sure, we all predicted that the golden boy rock was going to beat him but that's after he was champion for over 400 days and rock called the shot six months prior to that event. Cena would be the same Cena that we have grown to love or hate. Punk would be the same guy the IWC loves, and some regular fans are growing to hate. So many members of the IWC love to tell us how Cena is WWE's Superman, why not give him a Lex Luthor? They have given Superman every chance to beat his Lex Luthor over the past year and he keeps failing. WWE's Superman would for the first time since the Apex Predator feuds in the mid 2000's not be the dominating favorite as a champion. The championship match would actually be unpredictable. Isn't that what we want?
So to sum up this blog into four simple points...
1) Cena needs to beat Rock to get his mojo back.
2) Rock brings in ratings for their most important months of the year.
3) Cm punk gets to look strong while losing his belt
4) Superman Finally gets his true "Lex Luthor"
I would like to thank you guys for reading my blog. I hope I have brought some in sight to this situation that you guys may have not thought about. As any member of these forums likely knows, if you want I'd be willing to argue any points that I brought up in this blog, and I can't wait to hear your guy's feedback. Godspeed guy!


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Moderators: Timko, Fritz, Solty, Booter, Blake_T, Frank Delicious
JHern wrote:If your putter isn't your favorite disc, get a new putter.
Frank Delicious wrote:Every groove is a unique snowflake of suck.
A buzzz and a beer wrote:Option A: after every putt keep your foot in the air... then go into the karate kid pose. It would show balance and be awesome at the same time.
A buzzz and a beer wrote:Option B : put the foot down purely so the haters on your card don't get mad you're beating them and call you on it.
JHern wrote:A buzzz and a beer wrote:Option A: after every putt keep your foot in the air... then go into the karate kid pose. It would show balance and be awesome at the same time.
That's exactly what I do after every putt. Then I glare at, hiss, spit, and kick in the direction of other players on my card.A buzzz and a beer wrote:Option B : put the foot down purely so the haters on your card don't get mad you're beating them and call you on it.
I have to say, this doesn't necessarily satisfy the spirit of the rule. I've had putts inside the circle where I feel over-balanced in the forward direction, but straightened my knees and spine to slow the forward fall, then stretching my off foot down briefly behind the mini, and then acting like I'm pushing off of the off foot to launch forward to retrieve my disc out of the basket. I see a lot of people do this, but I really try to avoid it and I think it is not in the spirit of the rule. Showing balance, at least to me in the strictest sense, means being able to bring all support points down behind the line perpendicular to the back of the mini and then stay behind the mini indefinitely. Perhaps a rule requiring 5 seconds before any supporting point comes down in front of the line would do the trick, and eliminate this trickery?
A buzzz and a beer wrote:Mark: I agree with the upper ranks knowing. I think it is even a fair assumption that they can clearly tell balance if the person doesn't even put their foot down. I also think that the int and rec divisions are for learning these small things. I do think that in these divisions people should politly describe the rule and what was wrong to the person before calling them out to the whole group. I know I even go over this stuff with casuals I see at league or just on the course.
Mark Ellis wrote:Even Pros will occasionally foot fault from difficult lies, including me. I want players to tell me when I do because on throws with full run ups I don't watch where my feet land, looking instead at the target or the line. If you don't know that you screwed up you can't fix it. The key to learning not to foot fault is to practice upshots/fairway drives from a mini.
Chuck Kennedy wrote:If you can't throw well without a run-up you're complicating things with a run-up. You should be practicing to throw as far as possible with control with no run-up. Only use a run-up when you must throw farther than your stand and deliver throw, even on the tee. So many players would develop more accuracy if they practiced this, especially when tackling wooded routes.
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A video that walks through how to customize an existing Amazon Machine Image (AMI).
Approximately 15 minutes.
The purpose of this tutorial is to walk thru customizing an existing AMI, or Amazon Machine Image, in order that you can understand what is involved before you try it yourself. We'll make a small change, then save the AMI as a private image for future use. The finished image will not be visible to anyone else, unless of course you choose to explicitly share it.
The video was created using Windows; however any operating system works the same, because the command line tools run under Java.
There's a short list of things that we won't cover in this video.
- This video will not show you how to create an AMI from scratch
- And it will not show you how to upload an image created locally on your PC
- We're assuming that you already watched the video on how to set up Amazon EC2.
Watch the video in Flash format.
Watch the video in the Windows Media format.
See the Getting Started Guide and the related technical documentation for a written version of these steps.


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LACOCK FC will face second division stablemates Trowbridge Town Reserves in the EJ Shanley & Sons-sponsored Spring Cup final this Friday evening at WESTBURY UNITED'S Meadow Lane Ground.
A 3-1 victory for Joe Martin's side at home to Westwood News kept the villagers' hopes of a possible quadruple alive.
Lacock, who were crowed Division Two champions many weeks ago, had already beaten Westwood 3-1 and 5-0 this term and went into the game as favourites.
But with both sides missing key players it was anybody's game and so it proved as Lacock, who led 1-0 at the break thanks to Jake Marshall's scrambled effort after just two minutes, were pegged back within two minutes of the restart when Josh Maguire turned in a Ben Cowdrey cross to restore parity.
After this Westwood grew in confidence and they went close to taking the lead with Maguire firing just wide and Ashley Styles hitting the bar from a deflected shot.
Lacock managed to weather the Westwood storm and got themselves back in front on 78 minutes when Stuart Tutty headed in from a corner.
Lacock had the lead but were made to work hard to hold onto it before finally sealing a hat-trick of victories over the newsmen thanks to a delightful headed effort from Simon Gray who made it 3-1 in the 84th minute.
TROWBRIDGE & DISTRICT LEAGUE ROUNDUP, STATS AND PICTURES IN THURSDAY'S GAZETTE & HERALD AND FRIDAY'S WILTSHIRE TIMES AND FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @gazsport and @WTSport


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New England Patriots cornerback Alfonzo Dennard has been arrested again. The Omaha World-Herald reported the former Nebraska standout was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence early Thursday morning in Lincoln, Neb.
A Lincoln police captain told the newspaper that Dennard had been straddling a lane with his vehicle. In addition to the DUI, Dennard was cited for refusal of a chemical test and straddling lane lines and then released. He has a court date of Aug. 12.
According to Boston.com, the police report said Dennard "emitted an odor of alcohol and displayed signs of impairment." Police spokeswoman Katie Flood says Dennard, 24, was taken to a detoxification center but not jailed.
ROSS TUCKER: Patriots can't be blamed for taking a chance on Hernandez
In February, Dennard was convicted of assaulting a police officer in an April 2012 incident in Lincoln. He was found guilty of the felony plus the misdemeanor of resisting arrest. This April, Dennard was sentenced to 30 days in jail, which was set to start on March 1, 2014, and two years of probation.
The Patriots are reeling from a much more high-profile arrest, that of now former New England tight end Aaron Hernandez, charged with the first-degree murder of Odin Lloyd. Although the Hernandez case had much graver circumstances, the Patriots could also decide to cut Dennard, given his history of off-field troubles.
PHOTOS: NFL players arrested since the Super Bowl
The Patriots issued a statement on Thursday: "The New England Patriots are extremely disappointed to learn of Alfonzo Dennard's arrest. We take this matter very seriously and are working to get more information on the incident."
The Patriots took a chance on both of their projected starting corners for this season—Dennard and veteran Aqib Talib, who was acquired from the Buccaneers during last season. Talib also was a character risk after several off-field issues during his years with the Bucs.
Dennard, once considered a potential first-round talent, slipped all the way to the Patriots in the seventh round of the 2012 draft because of off-field concerns at Nebraska. One week after his arrest last year, the Patriots drafted Dennard with the 224th pick overall.
Terry Dougherty, his attorney in the assault case, said in April 2013 that he would ask Lancaster County District Judge Stephanie Stacy to suspend the jail sentence if Dennard complied with the terms of his probation over the next 11 months. Stacy said she would consider such a motion. His attorney from that case declined comment on Thursday's arrest.
Flood said a final decision on the charges Dennard will face likely will be made by the Lincoln City Attorney's Office before the Aug. 12 court date. It's unclear whether prosecutors will move to have Dennard's probation revoked.
Dennard sat out the first four games of his rookie season with a hamstring injury, then came off the bench in the next two. He started seven of the final 10 regular-season games and both playoff games.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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PURCHASE, N.Y. — Pepsi is giving fans a richer Grammy experience by partnering with The Recording Academy and entertainment platform Vevo, to create the "Best New Artist" video series.
Pepsi's multi-faceted partnership with The Recording Academy includes a "5 Questions With" series set to be featured exclusively on Grammy.com and across Vevo's web, mobile/tablet and connected TV platforms that will give fans the opportunity to discover Grammy nominees and potential winners. Also, the brand partnered with the Grammys for their live telecast which will introduce this season's The X Factor winner, Tate Stevens. Part of Pepsi's aspirational prize, a 30-second portion of Stevens' first-ever music video which features his first single, "Holler if You are With Me," is set to air during the award show on Feb. 10 on CBS.
Also returning this year is Pepsi's Best New Artist Pandora mixtape, which includes current and past Best New Artist GRAMMY® nominees. The Pepsi Grammy genre stations are also available on Pandora and feature stations based on official Grammy categories, ranging from pop to country to comedy.
"Pepsi has a long history of discovering and nurturing musical talent," said Angelique Krembs, VP marketing for Pepsi. "Our partnerships truly showcase our efforts to introduce and deliver new and exciting fan experiences by utilizing our best-in-class assets and multiple platforms all while delivering great content to music fans around the world."


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Stay from $169* per night. Rate valid in a Studio.
*Conditions Apply.
Mantra Quayside apartments put you right at the heart of Port Macquarie and its many attractions thanks to a great central location.
Step outside and you are just one block away from family-friendly shopping mall, cinemas, restaurants and cafes, as well as nightclubs and public transport.
Stroll down to the beach or Hastings River just 50 metres away where there are daily cruises, or relax by the heated pool in our rooftop entertainment area and admire the views of this charming seaside town and its mix of historic architecture and modern appeal.
Each Studio, One and Two Bedroom Apartment has a private balcony where you can sit back and relax, plus in-room entertainment is easy with free broadband Wi-Fi, broadband internet and cable TV.
Mantra Quayside is also the ideal base to venture out to see the loads of local sights, from national parks to vineyards, and is located just five kilometres from the airport.
For your comfort, the hotel and all rooms at Mantra Quayside are strictly non-smoking.
Mantra Quayside's rooftop area with heated swimming pool offers town and river views. Keep fit in our gymnasium or relax in the sauna. More »
Relax in your air-conditioned apartment with cable TV and broadband, or dine out on your private balcony and make the most of your kitchenette or full kitchen. More »
Mantra Quayside is located close to Horton Street's restaurants and cafés, or for something a little different make use of our rooftop barbecue and entertain family and friends. More »
See Room Type Information »
TripAdvisor Rating


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Hi Guys! This blog isn't really a review of SmackDown this week, as such, but more of a general rant/discussion about the show itself.
Now I don't tend to watch SmackDown but this week I thought I would. Then I remembered why. SmackDown seems to be in an absolute state these days and is nowhere as near as good as the days when it was formed as part of the Brand Extension scheme/story.
So the big news is that Brock Lesnar is back in the WWE! But I will deal with that later. The first thing I want to talk about is The Rock. He came out celebrating his victory against Cena at Sundays Wrestlemania and told us that he had a "vision" of him with the WWE Championship. In my opinion that would be pretty epic and would love to see him at the top again. However, he is a movie star
So we've had the build up, the expectation, the excitement and the actual event. It's now time to get views on what we all thought about the whole extravaganza! So here are mine...
World Heavyweight Championship match: Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus
Well what can I say! I was looking forward to that match and was completely shocked when I saw Sheamus walk out...opening the show! The
Updated 04-02-2012 at 03:12 PM by Frank
© 2011 eWrestlingNews, All Rights Reserved.


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Topic: FDA approves new bilary stent
This was posted in a local paper. As this company has been producing other stents, mainly vascular coated stents, I assume this stent to be resistant to infections. Hopefully, I will be able to contact the company in the near furture.
Medtronic, which develops stent technology in Santa Rosa, said Thursday the Food and Drug Administration has cleared a new stent system for sale in the United States.
The Complete SE Biliary Stent.
The Complete SE Bilary Stent System was developed and is assembled in Santa Rosa, the center of Medtronic's vascular operations. The stent itself is made in Germany.
This system will be used to treat cancerous tumors in the bile duct that can affect digestion by restricting the flow of digestive fluids.
Steve Hart


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Charity Emerton's Foundation is to benefit from a holistic event that will take place at the Neeld Hall, Chippenham, on Sunday, March 2.
Local practitioners will be on hand throughout the day to talk to visitors about their therapies and advise how they may help. Many will also be offering taster sessions for a low fee or donation.
All raffle prizes have been donated and all proceeds from the event will go to the charity.
Emerton's Foundation was set up by Lisa Chisholm and Stephen Joyce following the death of their young son Emerton from leukaemia, to provide support to other families with a child with leukaemia or autism.
Chippenham woman Lyn Stones, who has organised the event, said: ''It's all about giving something back to the community, and we're delighted to be able to support one of the lesser known local charities.
"Entry is free, so come along on March 2 and support this worthwhile cause. You can just pop in for a cup of tea and a piece of cake and know you are helping."
For more information contact Lyn Stones at email@example.com


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Frederic Victor Winter Jr. died April 3. He was 83.
Mr. Winter was born Aug. 24, 1928, in Chicago. He attended Lane Technical High School. He later attended the University of Detroit and Wayne State University where he studied marketing and criminal justice. He served in the Navy during World War II, and married Florence Ann in 1951. He worked as a sales engineer for more than 40 years. In 1979, he and his wife co-founded Mentally Ill Need Direction, or M.I.N.D., which later became the Clackamas County Affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Florence passed away in December 2006. In November 2007, he married Judy Redler.
He had seven children: Lydia, Virginia, Patricia, Frederic III, Gloria, Cynthia and Carl; three stepsons, Andy, Michael and Larry; seven grandchildren; and two great-granddaughters.
A Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m., Tuesday, April 10, at St. Philip Benizi Church in Oregon City, preceded by a rosary at 10:30 a.m.


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Family Movie Night
Tuesday, January 28, 2014 - 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Kimberly Public Library
Beat the winter blues with a fun night out at the movies with free popcorn. Inventor Flint Lockwood learns that his invention is creating food-animals, and he and his friends embark on a dangerously delicious mission to battle foodimals to save the world again! Rated PG.


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Update It! Replace It! Change It Back! by MouseStation Crew
MouseStation Episode 433
Mike and Mark talk about rides that need updating or replacing, or should be changed back to what they were before an update or replacement.
Read it here!
Update It! Replace It! Change It Back! by MouseStation Crew
MouseStation Episode 433
Mike and Mark talk about rides that need updating or replacing, or should be changed back to what they were before an update or replacement.
Read it here!
As I emailed in, for the love of all things holy, please bring back the Dreamfinder!
Mar 99 - Honeymoon off site WDW, Mar 02 - Port Orleans WDW, Mar 04 - Off site WDW, Jun 05 - Off site DL, Dec 05 - Off site WDW, Mar 06 - Contemporary / Wilderness Lodge WDW, Mar 07 - Off site WDW, Mar 08 - Off site WDW, Mar 09 - All Stars Sports WDW, Mar 10 - Off site WDW, Mar 11 - Coronado Springs WDW
This is another great show topic, and I hope you continue on with this theme. I generally agreed with your assessments on this show, so I won't go into too much detail. The big ones for me that I think need replacement/updating are Stitch's Great Escape (Lilo & Stitch is one of my favorite post 2000 Disney movies but the attraction doesn't even begin to do the film justice); Laugh Floor is fun, but it seems like there's something more worthwhile they could do with that space; and Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, it's a very good attraction, but I think it's vastly inferior to the Disneyland version, and I'd love to see them update it with that level of polish and charm (like I've mentioned before, I think it didn't help Imagineering that Space Ranger Spin opened just before Pixar dropped Toy Story 2 in the shredder and started over from scratch, where Astro Blasters opened a few years after the film was released). There's a few other little tweaks here and there that I think would improve the park, but that's my top three.
I hope you guys continue on with this topic, and I'd especially love to hear your opinion on the changes that have been made at the Disneyland Resort.
I also agree that this was another great show topic. Did I miss it when you discussed Mr. Toads wild ride being changed to The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh? I meant to go back and re-listen but have not had a chance.
Thank you for this great Pod Cast. I am a former Cast Member and I now currently reside in Branson Missouri. I enjoy hearing updates on the parks and the Banter between you guys. Keep up the good work!
I'm behind in my podcast listening, but I can tell you right now what I think needs to be updated: The Great Movie Ride.
There are a bunch of great parts to it, but a few that just seem to ruin it for me. Also, the ride hasn't been updated since it was released, so it simply isn't fresh to me anymore. I feel like the train gets robbed bit is just kitschy- if the idea is to make you oooh and aaah about the history of Hollywood, why distract you with the wierd plot. During the greenhouse boat ride at The Land in Epcot you don't get hijacked by a locust or anything. Just make it a "star tour" type thing- where you go through the different eras and genres as the guide brings you through- then you get an animatronic reproduciton of a famous scene (Casablanca, Singin in the Rain, etc). Lastly, when you get to the end and the 3 minute movie montage- lengthen that by a couple of minutes and bring some more recent movies (anything from the 90's onward) so that people under the age of 30 recognize something they actually saw in theaters.


text: Last I saw luxury tax was projected to be over 75m. We're fine signing Lance on a 4 year deal like 8m, 10m, 10m, 12m. Should be able to get up to 10m in year one without dropping anyone and 13m in year one if we can ship Copelands contract. I don't see a problem.


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aGLIFF presents: THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB
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Austin News
Eat and drink in proper KINGSMAN style.
Introducing our exclusive KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE takeover menu packed with hearty grub and classy tipples. And bourbon. Lotsa bourbon.
Our Hurricane Harvey relief efforts (updated!)
Lending a hand to neighbors in need via matching donations in all locations, benefit screenings, a Mondo auction, and free admission for evacuees in select locations.


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Mary Elizabeth King
Mary Elizabeth King, age 69 of Atwater, passed away Thursday, January 31, 2013, at her home.
She was born October 26, 1943, in Akron, Ohio, a daughter of the late Lester and Thelma (Steele) Fetherolf. Mary was a loving wife to Thomas King and mother to Lawrence, Debbie (Dennis), Diane (Carl), Margaret (Adam), Shirley (Tom), Bobby, Thomas, Anthony (Bonnie), Norman, and Carolyn (Bo). Mary is also the proud grandmother of 26 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.
She was a very loving person who took care of the elderly in her home. Mary was loved by many and her home was always open to everyone.
She was preceded in death by her daughter Phyllis, her brothers Lester and Jack Fetherolf, and her grandson Christopher.
Friends will be received Monday, February 4, 2013, from 4:00-7:00 PM at the Wood-Kortright-Borkoski Funeral Home, 703 E. Main St., Ravenna, with Reverend Bill Wisniewski officiating the funeral service at 7:00 PM. Burial will take place at Cothran Cemetery in Rover, Tennessee.
Condolences and memories may be shared at www.wood-kortright-borkoski.com. The family would like to thank Robinson Memorial Hospice for their wonderful care.
(Wood-Kortright-Borkoski 330-296-6436, RC 2-2, 3-13)


text: When scrolling down a vb forum that I own...the colors fade at the top as I scroll down the page. So when I am scrolling down the page, it'll go from normal red, to dim, to dark. This is the only page on which this happens. Any advice? This is my first LCD monitor. I've been a CRT user forever.


text: Make your own work of art with Zazzle's huge selection of posters, canvas prints, photo prints and wood wall art. Decorate bare walls with the great artwork, images and tpographic designs created by our talented and wonderful designers. Find posters and prints in many shapes and sizes to accommodate different areas of your house or office. You can even browse our selection for items that make great gifts for everyone in your life. Purchase a masterpiece from Zazzle today!


text:
Hello everyone!
I have this piece of JQuery:

The mighty span

Tab1
Tab2
Tab3


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Homers haunt Francis as Rox drop twin-bill opener
Starter serves up three dingers in coldest MLB game played in Denver
DENVER -- The 23-degree first-pitch temperature made the Rockies' 4-3 loss to the Braves in the opener of a doubleheader at Coors Field on Tuesday the coldest Major League game ever in Denver.
Go down a few more degrees, you'll find left-handed starter Jeff Francis.
Justin Upton, Dan Uggla and Evan Gattis took turns clubbing home runs off Francis, who went just four innings -- the third straight time he has not managed five frames. If nothing else, at least it got him off the mound earlier on a day when the starting temperature was five degrees lower than that of the previous record, shared by Thursday's game against the Mets and a contest against the old Montreal Expos at Coors on April 12, 1997.
According to The Associated Press, STATS Inc. reported that Tuesday was the lowest game-time temperature since STATS began tracking the stat in 1991.
The Braves' trio of homers, with Uggla's being a two-run shot in the second inning, accounted for all four runs and half of the six hits off Francis (1-2) before manager Walt Weiss pulled him after 75 pitches.
With the Rockies not having a day off until May 2, there is a chance Francis could pitch on short rest Saturday at Arizona. Maybe that will be one less day to think about his struggles. Since a strong six innings while defeating the Padres in the home opener, Francis has coughed up a 12.60 ERA, as well as 22 hits in 10 innings.
Even though Francis' last two games were pitched in extreme cold, he doesn't blame the weather.
"It's the same for everybody," Francis said. "There's no excuse to say it's too cold to pitch or hit or whatever."
Francis said Upton's homer, his Major League-leading 10th this season, was a pitch in the location he wanted it. The others, not so much. The narrowing difference between his offspeed pitches -- the changeup and the curveball, with which he had trouble because the cold weather made the ball hard to grip -- and his fastball was not as great as it was in his successful start.
"I've been through it before," Francis said. "It's nothing new. The obvious thing is I have to go out and make better pitches consistently. My preparation to do that won't change."
Weiss, who warned before the game that the Braves' power must be reckoned with, doesn't doubt Francis.
"I have confidence he'll come out and do the things he's done," Weiss said. "He's got a plan out there, and he knows how to execute it. It's just a matter of executing it."
Upton went deep to center with two out in the first, and Uggla's shot came in the second for a 3-0 lead. In the Rockies' second, Troy Tulowitzki drew a walk from Mike Minor (3-1) and went to third on Michael Cuddyer's double. Wilin Rosario's fielder's-choice grounder and Jordan Pacheco's single cut the difference to 3-2, and the Rockies already had matched the run total Minor had given up in his first three starts.
"I didn't have a whole lot of good stuff today," Minor said. "I threw a lot of offspeed, and then I mixed in a fastball just to throw them off -- a lot of changeups, curveballs, whatever I could do to get some outs."
Dexter Fowler's leadoff triple and Josh Rutledge's infield single allowed the Rockies to tie the game in the third, but Francis served up Gattis' sixth homer of his rookie season to open the fourth. Gattis has homered in all five of the parks in which he has played.
Gattis salted away the victory and Craig Kimbrel's eighth save by catching Rosario stealing -- which Weiss said he authorized -- for the final out. Chris Nelson swung through the pitch, but Rosario didn't make it to second.
"Rosario's a catcher, but he's got three stolen bases this year," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "Kind of surprised that they ran. We knew they had a possibility of doing it. They did it last year in September against Kimbrel. I think it was first and third in the eighth, and they were successful stealing a bag."
The Rockies stayed in the game because of the bullpen. Righty Rob Scahill, recently called up from Triple-A Colorado Springs, struck out two and gave up one hit in three scoreless innings, and Edgmer Escalona struck out two in two scoreless innings.
"With a lineup like that, you've got to be so conscious to execute your pitch," Scahill said. "If you make a mistake, they're going to hit it and hit it hard."
The Braves' Reed Johnson had three doubles during a 4-for-4 game.
Thomas Harding is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Hardball in the Rockies, and follow him on Twitter @harding_at_mlb. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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News Release
Media Contact: TPWD News, firstname.lastname@example.com, 512-389-8030
Feb. 26, 2007
Stolen Night-Vision Goggles Recovered in Poaching Investigation
DECATUR, Texas — Wise County District Attorney Jana A. Jones announced Tues. the arrest of six men suspected of stealing military night vision equipment and using it to illegally hunt.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game wardens and special operations investigators, in cooperation with the Wise County Sheriff's Office, arrested the men, from Wise and Parker Counties, Feb. 15 and 16.
The arrests came after a four-month investigation into illegal hunting activity in Wise, Montague, Jack, Parker and Tarrant Counties. In early January, additional information about the use of the stolen night vision goggles was discovered.
Each of the suspects has been charged with Theft over $1,500, a State Jail Felony.
All four night vision devices — valued at $4,200 each — reported missing from Texas Army National Guard supplies in the Laredo area were recovered. A separate, internal National Guard investigation after the equipment was discovered missing also identified one of the suspects arrested last week.
"This was a great team effort," said Jones. "TPWD, our local law enforcement and the National Guard cooperated very well in this investigation, identified the alleged culprits and recovered every single missing item of military hardware."
Publication — Permission is granted to publish, in whole or in part, any news releases on this page.
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(5.4.16 i)


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Real-time expert system a real gold mine
Mine revenues jumped $7 million per year at Kemess Mines in British Columbia after installation of an expert system controlling the process, and pushed throughput by 5%.
By Greg Rasmussen, Mill Superintendent, Northgate Minerals Corp.
NORTHGATE MINERALS CORP. (Vancouver, BC, Canada) is a gold and copper mining company. Its principal assets are its Kemess
Ball mills (shown here) reduces the mined material down to 150 microns, producing 300,000 ounces of gold per year.
In the past, the mills were not pushed that hard because operators, who also have many other jobs, were not able to focus on throughput. To overcome this, run the mills on a more consistent basis and stabilize our control strategy, the company decided to implement an expert system. We issued a request for proposals and selected mine process systems integrator Minnovex Technologies because the its people clearly understood the mining business and their references were excellent. Minnovex' proposal also strongly emphasized operator buy-in, which anyone knows critical for a successful implementation of these types of systems.
Room for Improvement
Because operators did not have time to consistently monitor the operation of the mills, downtime was higher and throughput lower than it could have been. The mines operated with four different crews, each with their own individual procedures. Operators were usually able to make supervisory control adjustments but only about every 30 minutes under normal conditions and every 5–10 minutes in the case of upsets. The mills were producing 49,500 tons/day but we believed there was considerable room for improvement. Every 1% increase in throughput in the mills produces $1.5 million in incremental revenues, so the stakes were high.
Northgate began the implementation process with Minnovex by talking to the people that know the machinery and processes best, the mill's operators. They were asked a number of questions including: How do you control the equipment? What control strategy do you use under various conditions? When do you make setpoint changes and how does the process behave in these situations? Northgate's managers distilled their existing strategy into a flow chart of decision-making operations that everyone understood. The result was that on Minnovex' very first trip to the plant, which involved two people and took five days, everyone--from operators to top management--agreed on the best operating practices for the mill. From the beginning the integrator had a very good idea of what the expert system would do and went back to their offices to create it.
Platform Reduces Development Time
Minnovex Expert Technology (MET) system consists of a toolkit and a repeatable and sustainable methodology designed for developing expert systems in the industries in which the company works. The toolkit was developed using Gensym's G2 real-time expert system platform. An expert system is a software program that solves problems using information and reasoning techniques normally associated with a human expert. With such a system operators can assess, diagnose, and respond to unusual operating situations or seek to optimize operations. The MET system also provides a number of diagnostic and development tools so that system administrators can help ensure maintenance goals are met and continued growth are possible without extensive training or experience.
The G2 platform provides a structure that makes it easy to collect data in real time and determine what actions to take. Development time and effort are reduced because most of the application logic can be applied parametrically by changing the properties of or relationships between objects rather than by coding.
MET modules use the platform to optimize the operation of the mill lines by defining the state of the process through both measured and inferred values. MET then determines the operating actions that maximize throughput.
For example, suppose the mill was approaching an overload condition, with the power decreasing and load increasing. In this situation, the expert system employs fuzzy logic, an approach that emulates human reasoning. With fuzzy logic the rules of inference are approximate rather than exact.
Kemess' flotation cells accept the output of the ball mills and separate the minerals from the crushed rock.
Implementation and Tuning
When the coding was completed, Minnovex engineers brought the expert system back to the Kemess mine, installed it on a PC, and began the coarse tuning process. At first, they ran the expert system connected to the DCS in an advisory mode while operators and supervisors viewed and commented on its responses to the changing mill conditions.
The initial version required relatively few changes. In only three days everyone was happy with its performance and the first line was put under its control while operators continued to closely monitor its decisions.
After two more days, the second line was put under control of the MET expert system and, after another day of monitoring, the MET expert was allowed to control both lines.
A key to the fast implementation was the way that Minnovex obtained input from the operators and explained how the system was simply implementing decisions that they would have made on their own. The operators bought into the expert system so they rarely interrupt its operation.
Semi autogenous grinding (SAG) mills grind rock from 6 inches down to ½ in.
Extra Revenues Realized
When Northgate first put the lines under the control of the expert system, operators kept a watch on the system and made notes on areas that might be improved. Minnovex's engineers came back a few weeks later and spent several days in a fine-tuning process that provided even further throughput gains. Northgate has since taken over administration of the system and it has remained stable and easy to maintain. Another benefit of this whole effort has been that Northgate's operators are now more knowledgeable about controlling mill processes and better prepared to help drive future improvements.
Before Northgate installed the expert system, the company's two mill lines were producing an average of 49,500 tons/day. The mills are now running at 51,500 to 52,000 tons/day, a nearly 5% improvement, which generates an extra $7 million in revenues per year. Based on its success Northgate is planning to use a similar systems to control flotation cells, which accept the output of the ball mills and separate the minerals from the crushed rock. Finally the company is in the process of installing new flotation cells using vision technology to monitor the size of the bubbles and speed of the froth. With the expert system controlling the process based on this and other process data, Northgate expects to achieve gains similar in magnitude to those that achieved on the mill lines.
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text:
Posted 5 years ago
(172 items)
When my grandmother died, this was about the only thing left for me after the scavengers got thru. It is great! The metal handle of this weighs about 8 oz & breaks ice that has refrozen together with ease. New 1's won't do that. Used it in my club in Jamaica where we had to get 50 lb blocks for the cooler. Still have it & still use it.
Anybody ever seen these heavy things?


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FormulaMath brain teasers require computations to solve.
If you use a certain formula on 13, you end up with 7.
Under the same formula, 2352 becomes 16, 246 becomes 14, 700 turns into 16, and 1030 becomes 14.
What would 9304 become?
Answer19. Convert the number to binary, add one for every zero, and add two for every 1.
9304 becomes 10010001011000, which has 9 zeros and 5 ones.
What Next?
See another brain teaser just like this one...
Or, just get a random brain teaser
If you become a registered user you can vote on this brain teaser, keep track of
which ones you have seen, and even make your own.
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text:
Cross Hills VW dealer White Rose has seen sales increase despite the recession and it is now planning to expand its showroom.
And the independent family-run company – founded by managing director Frank Greenway in 1993 – has just beaten off hundreds of rivals to win the VW award for the best after-sales service in the UK and Europe.
"It is fantastic," said 58-year-old Mr Greenway. "It is a credit to everyone who works here and it is great to be recognised."
White Rose is also hoping to achieve another win at the VW One Business Award later this month.
"Our success is down to fantastic cars, outstanding service and a very loyal customer base," said Mr Greenway. "We are passionate about what we do and that reaps rewards.
"We have a very low staff turnover, which means customers know the staff and are comfortable with them."
He added: "Our business expanded during the recession and we have outgrown our present facilities.
"As a result, we are planning to extend our showroom and build a new preparation bay."
Once the work is completed – probably by Easter – the company hopes to increase its workforce from 36 to 40.
It is a far cry from when the company first started selling VW cars 13 years ago – that year, it achieved about 100 sales, but it now averages about 1,500.
"VW's aspirations are to be one of the largest manufacturers globally and its product range is expanding all the time.
"Our place has been designed to cope with the next ten years of growth," said Mr Greenway, whose two sons, Luke, and James work for the business.


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THOUSANDS of people are expected to line the streets of Tredegar to welcome home Paralympics hero Mark Colbourne.
The cyclist, who scooped a gold and silver medal at the London event, will be carried in an open top bus, as the town marks what Mr Colbourne calls an epic journey.
Follow Mark Colbourne's welcome home with the Argus
Our reporter Chris Wood will be tweeting from Tredegar, so use the hashtag #markwelcome to join in the conversation.
He said: "Coming home to Wales is always a great feeling of joy and such a happy occasion for me, however, to see everyone celebrate my success will give me such a buzz that will stay with me for years to come."
The event has been organised by Tredegar Town Council, with the bus leaving the Bevan Memorial Stones, Bryn Serth, at 11am.
It will then travel down Beaufort Road and along the bypass to the Crown roundabout before moving through Ashvale and Sycamore Avenue, to Stockton Way.
There will then be a loop through the one-way system in the town, past Gwent Shopping Centre and along Commercial Street with a photo at the golden postbox, painted to commemorate Mr Colbourne's success.
After travelling past the town clock, down Morgan Street and across Boulevard d'Orvault, the bus journey will finish at Bedwellty Park, where Mr Colbourne will take to the bandstand to say a few words.
Leader of Tredegar Town Council Malcolm Cross said: "He is a fantastic role model and deserves recognition for his breathtaking performances at the Games."
Blaenau Gwent AM Alun Davies called on all locals to turn up and show Mr Colbourne how proud they are of him.
See a larger route map:
%image(2172260 )


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On Saturday for the first time I visited the Lincoln Park Zoo. Of course, we rode our bikes there. The zoo is free, located just north of downtown by the lake. The size is impressive for a free attraction and it's a fun way to spend the day, especially for families with children.
Some exhibits were a little sad, especially the intelligent gorillas. I'm not sure how I feel about zoos in general, but the beauty of the space is undeniable, especially in the middle of a city as big as Chicago. I enjoyed spending the day outside with nature and with my friend Marisol from high school, visiting from North Carolina. A good thing about living in Chicago is being a hub for visitors :)


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Whooping Cough Outbreak In Ocean County
Shawn and I want your family and kids to stay healthy. Ocean County is in the midst of an outbreak of pertussis, or "whooping cough," according to a news release issued this past Friday from the county health department.
10 Things NOT To Get A Woman For Valentine's Day [LIST]
Alright guys, you have a week until the big day. That should give you MORE than enough time to prepare. However, in order to prevent your untimely demise, let me help you out with a few things you should ABSOLUTELY NOT GIVE your woman on Valentine's Day (and in some cases, ever.)