text:
Well, there is one, or something quite similar. What's more, we all produce it -- right in our own brains.
Oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that is secreted during sex and also helps moms and babies bond, is released at high levels as well when you feel that what you're saying (the client) is resonating with the listener (the advisor). That feeling promotes trust.
In fact, oxytocin has been dubbed the "trust hormone" by researchers delving into the emerging, fascinating field of social neuroscience.
In its infancy, this discipline studies the human brain to reveal which specific parts get fired up during our numerous, diverse interactions with others. Social neuroscience's basic premise is that the brain has been designed to connect with other brains.
Research revelations are already finding application in futuristic marketing and advertising plans. But here, as in other fields, a potential for dangerous mind manipulation raises questions.
However, social neuroscience, combined with insights from behavioral finance and psychology, can provide valuable information to guide financial advisors in finding out what makes clients tick. In order to serve their total financial needs, it's essential, of course, for FAs to know as much as they can about clients' lives.
"Social neuroscience is a myth-busting device that helps sort out the common sense we thought was true and that is true, from the common sense we thought was true but that has no basis," says psychiatrist Richard L. Peterson, a neuroscientist and partner in Market Psychology Consulting, a Los Angeles-based company that trains financial advisors.
Social neuroscientists study brain scans -- typically functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) -- that measure brain activity during short time spans. Neuro-imaging technology can even show which parts of the brain influence financial decision-making. Under certain circumstances, for example, super-activity in the fear-processing area known as the amygdala suggests a high degree of risk aversion.
"These would be fearful, anxious-type people," notes neuropsychiatrist Richard Restak, clinical professor of neurology at George Washington University Medical Center and author of The Naked Brain: How the Emerging Neurosociety Is Changing How We Live, Work, and Love (Harmony Books-2006).
In one experiment into how oxytocin influences financial decisions and trust, students were given $10 each and received either synthetic oxytocin, via nasal spray, or a placebo. They then played a special computer game in which subjects who acted as "investors" chose whether or not to send money to their partners. The recipients had to decide whether to give some of the money back to the investors or to keep everything.
Scientists found that investors who inhaled the synthetic oxytocin were considerably more trusting: They invested 17 percent more than the investors who sniffed the placebo.
As related to oxytocin release, brain doctors are also busy studying issues of empathy and rapport. Indeed, at this early stage, perhaps the best way social neuroscience research can help financial advisors is in demonstrating why it's important for them to empathize with clients.
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and share in their emotion as if you were experiencing it yourself. FAs who are deeply empathic excel in encouraging clients to disclose critical personal and financial information.
Experiments have revealed just what occurs in the brain when one person shows empathy for another. In the lab, subjects typically are exposed to a painful stimulus while looking at photographs and taking either another person's viewpoint or their own. These scans are compared to what happens in their brains when they look at the photos without pain exposure.
Notes Restak, author of 18 books about the brain: "By creating an atmosphere of trust, we enhance the oxytocin levels in the brains of those we come into contact with and vice versa...If I act in a trustworthy manner and thereby elevate that oxytocin level in the other person's brain, he or she is more likely to trust me."
Empathizing with clients is indeed essential to developing a solid rapport. "The key thing is that clients feel you understand how it feels to have their problems. When people are more trusting, they're likely to give you more money to work with and are more forthcoming about the truths in their lives," says Peterson, who wrote Inside the Investor's Brain: The Power of Mind Over Money (Wiley- 2007). A former trader, he plans to launch a hedge fund in July based on the psychological factors that predict irrational decision-making.
Peterson continues: "Realize that the first time a client comes to you is because they have an emotional issue. It just happens to be around money: They've got money, and emotionally they don't feel right about what it's doing. The best communication has to be on an unconscious emotional level. First the client wants to know if they can trust you. The next level is: 'Do you really understand what I'm saying?'"
Noted researcher Paul Ekman, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California Medical School at San Francisco, says: "Like any salesman, an investment advisor needs to be able to understand the unspoken feelings of the client to develop a rapport and obtain their loyalty. Probably the most important thing is to be in tune with their emotions, their concerns, their embarrassments."
Ekman is the pioneering expert on "face reading," which can determine, among other things, if someone is concealing the truth. His famed technique, Facial Action Coding System (FACS), has been used by the FBI, CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense. Another of the psychologist's clients is a large financial services company that recently hired him to determine, he says, if "people they're considering investing in are telling the truth about their [firms'] prospects.
"There are three things you can get from the face," according to Ekman. "They are: what the person feels and acknowledges, what feelings they're fabricating and what emotions they're trying to conceal."
As for financial advisors' clients, he notes, often they "don't [want to] reveal their hesitations, worries or fears."
Ekman's company trains in the use of FACS, which focuses on the movement of a number of facial muscles. "You can miss the very fast movements if you blink -- and most people miss them even when they're not blinking," says the psychologist, now offering an online interactive tool for self-training in his system (www.paulekman.com).
Author of Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life (Henry Holt-2003), Ekman expects "the next big thing" to be the ability to determine truthfulness from changes in voice quality. "The emotions of anger and fear look entirely different on the face, and I'm sure they have a different voice signature too."
New research in social neuroscience is zeroing in on investor attitudes in relation to the tenor of the market. Professors have found that in periods of relative predictability, different parts of the brain are activated as opposed to times of unpredictability.
A predictable environment promotes longer-term rewards, the research suggests. Unpredictability -- characterized by volatility, for example -- makes investors focus on short-term rewards, says John P. Cacioppo, a social psychology professor at the University of Chicago and director of its Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience.
In predictable periods, he says, "investors can push their time perspectives out further and focus on longer-term rewards. But in unpredictable times, they're more interested in short-term" returns.
FAs can also learn much from the way clients describe their financial goals, notes Cacioppo. "If they're stated in a very concrete fashion, that suggests less flexibility in getting where they want to go than if they're stated in a very abstract way."
Brain research is uncovering, too, the neurophysiological character of key emotions and other feelings connected with risk. One of them is hope. It is associated with the part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, which is the center for lust and desire. Fear -- and loss aversion -- is linked to the anterior insula (pain and disgust center), according to Hersh Shefrin, a professor of behavioral finance at Santa Clara University.
"If you stimulate the ... nucleus accumbens before a financial decision is made," he says, "you'll find that people are prone to be more willing to take risks than otherwise."
Shefrin cites a Washington University study -- "Are People More Risk-Taking in the Presence of the Opposite Sex?" -- in which subjects were presented with a mix of neutral and sensual photographs. Researchers, he says, found that "when you show guys sexy pictures and ask them to make a financial decision right away, they'll make riskier decisions than if you showed them other kinds of pictures."
A different part of the brain's reward system is the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). It is activated, writes Peterson, "by the anticipation of earning money, and...drives pursuit of the...investments that one wants."
How can social neuroscience help FAs resolve investing-strategy conflicts between, say, married clients? Brain imaging has shown that bringing the couple's brains back into synchrony with each other can pave the way to a solution.
"Move away from discussing financial decisions, and put them on the same page by getting them to agree on something entirely different," says Cacioppo. Once the two are in sync, neuro-imagery will show their brains to be in "complementary modes of activation. They'll be empathic with one another -- in physical resonance, like two clocks ticking at the same time."
What does social neuroscience teach us about building client relationships?o People are more willing to work with strangers -- i.e., give them money -- when the strangers are similar to themselves.o Investors feel more positive and aroused by the potential of a reward than they are when a gain actually occurs.o Neurotic people are more reactive to signs of danger -- but therefore are also more vigilant about potential risks.o People with high social intelligence decide if someone is trustworthy faster than people who aren't as socially adept.o Gregarious, extraverted people jump at opportunities.o Depressed people are better at analyzing details.
What kinds of insight will social neuroscience provide in the decades ahead?As the century continues to unfold, social neuroscience is expected to exert a major impact on our lives -- in many ways that we can't even imagine. In fact, writes Richard Restak, professor of neurology at George Washington University Medical Center and author of The Naked Brain: How the Emerging Neurosociety Is Changing How We Live, Work and Love, "we will be encouraged to think of ourselves in terms and concepts drawn from neuroscience."
Some brain doctors anticipate the introduction of drugs that can be directed at different portions of the brain to control, among others, risk-taking attitude.
"Using neuro-imaging," writes neuroscientist Richard L. Peterson, partner in Los Angeles-based Market Psychology Consulting, "the potential for various bad financial decisions can [some day] be diagnosed and corrected."
Professor of behavioral finance Hersh Shefrin, of Santa Clara University, even predicts a flight simulator-like contraption that will help advisory clients experience in advance events that would negatively impact their finances. This means, he says, that advisors, instead of "taking a wild guess with a risk-tolerance questionnaire, will be better able to put together financial plans based on how the investor is actually likely to react."
In contrast to social neuroscience's benefits, however, brain research will doubtlessly be used by some to try to manipulate our minds.
Citing that potential danger, neuropsychiatrist Restak writes that we'll "achieve additional insights into the relationship of the brain to our most intimate and personal thoughts...We can employ this emerging new knowledge about social neuroscience to advance human freedom...or we can allow irresponsible people to use [it] in ways that are not always to our advantage."
Freelance writer Jane Wollman Rusoff is a Los Angeles-based contributing editor of Research and is the founder of Family Star Productions.


text:
Maverick Elbert County commissioner's concern over thousands of tons of waste from Denver's sewer system being used as fertilizer has spawned an unprecedented $1.4 million agreement to monitor soil and water on an eastern Colorado farm.
Since taking office in 1996, John Dunn has butted heads with oil companies, developers and gun enthusiasts. He's spent much of the past year learning about biosolids and the complex and often emotional issues involved in disposing of sewage. "I've learned more about shit than I needed to know in a lifetime," laughs Dunn.
The Metro Wastewater Reclamation District extracts eighty tons of solid waste daily from the millions of gallons of sewage that flow through its Commerce City plant and trucks the waste--known as biosolids--to a district-owned, 51,000-acre farm that straddles the Arapahoe and Elbert county line south of Deer Trail. Last year neighboring farmers began complaining bitterly about the practice, claiming that clouds of sewage dust from the district's property were landing in their fields and contaminating streams. In response to their criticisms, Dunn encouraged the other Elbert County commissioners to issue a cease-and-desist order against the district, precipitating a discussion between wastewater-district officials and commissioners in both Elbert and Arapahoe counties.
Now the three entities are about to sign an intergovernmental agreement that calls for independent monitoring of soil and water on the farm to make sure levels of heavy metals such as cadmium and lead don't exceed government safety standards. The wastewater district will foot the bill for U.S. Geological Survey scientists to collect and analyze samples of soil and water from the farm over the next six years.
"This is the most comprehensive monitoring plan for biosolids in the United States," says Dunn. "If I had to single out the most important thing I've done for the county, this would be it."
Today many sewage-treatment districts are disposing of solid wastes by converting them into fertilizer and trucking it to farms. The practice has alarmed some environmentalists, who fear that concentrations of industrial chemicals found in sewage will somehow make their way into the food chain. "There are so many questions that remain unanswered as we've gone along this route," says Joan Seeman of the Sierra Club's Rocky Mountain chapter.
Dunn hopes that Elbert County has gotten some of those questions answered. "We've said that we're not going to allow another Summitville mine out here," he says, referring to the notorious cyanide leach mine that contaminated streams in southern Colorado earlier this decade. Although he shares Seeman's concerns, Dunn says he realizes that solid wastes have to go somewhere, and he's willing to accept them in Elbert County as long as they follow federal safety standards and don't contaminate the soil or watershed.
"Something has to be done with the waste out of Denver," adds Dunn. "You can't just say 'not in my backyard.'"
Many of the problems coming from the district's farm in Elbert County's backyard stemmed from poor farming practices. According to Dunn, poor topsoil conditions led to dust storms that blew the biosolids onto adjacent property. Since scientists from Colorado State University began working with the wastewater district to improve its farming techniques, however, the impact on neighboring farms has been lessened. And the proposed monitoring agreement between the district and the counties will make sure that impact remains small.
Under the agreement, the USGS will track levels of heavy metals (including cadmium, copper, lead, zinc and mercury), nitrates and radioactivity in the soil and groundwater on the farm. The agency will also look specifically for plutonium. That's because next year, heavily polluted water from the Lowry landfill Superfund site east of Denver will be processed and then put into the metro sewage system.
The Lowry site is one of the most polluted in Colorado. For decades, local companies and the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant dumped their wastes--a toxic mix of acid and alkaline sludge, solvents and pesticides, as well as low-level radioactive waste--at the facility. While no one disputes the presence of these substances at the landfill, a handful of environmental activists claim that Rocky Flats also dumped plutonium--the most lethal substance known to man.
"The Environmental Protection Agency has cut a sweetheart deal with Rocky Flats to deny there is plutonium at the landfill," says Adrienne Anderson, a former Metro Wastewater boardmember. "Now they're redispensing it into rural Colorado and the nation's food chain." Anderson, a City of Denver appointee to the board, angered fellow boardmembers with her claim that plutonium would be entering the sewage system from Lowry; Mayor Wellington Webb chose not to reappoint her when her term expired earlier this year.
State and federal officials involved in the cleanup have insisted there is no evidence of plutonium at the site. But that hasn't prevented many citizens from becoming alarmed. Since the groundwater from the landfill will soon be part of the sewage stream moving through Metro Wastewater plants, some of those wastes will end up in the biosolids being spread on the district's farmland. To reassure anxious rural residents, the district has agreed to regularly test the biosolids for plutonium; the wastewater board is expected to approve the agreement with Elbert and Arapahoe counties in January.
But even with stringent monitoring, the district's decision to accept treated wastes from Lowry remains controversial. The Sierra Club's Seeman is particularly concerned about Aurora's plan to begin recycling wastewater for use in irrigating parks and golf courses, since some of that water will have been pumped out of the landfill.
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Last week the Sierra Club asked the district's board to hold public hearings on the decision to accept Lowry wastes. "We'd like a dialogue," says Seeman. "I think we need to involve more people in this. We hope they'd give a presentation and allow the public to participate."
Metro Wastewater spokesman Steve Pearlman says the district board has not yet decided on whether to hold such a hearing. The district had already solicited written comments from the public, he points out, and the agreement to accept the Lowry wastes won't be reversed. "The decision to do this was made by the board a long time ago," he says, adding that by agreeing to the monitoring program, the district hopes to finally silence critics such as Anderson.
"We want to answer the question: Is there plutonium in the biosolids?" says Pearlman. "We know what's going into the soil, but why should people believe us? It's a put-up-or-shut-up kind of thing."
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
George Washington Montang - July 09, 2014To John VanDyke and Theresa Montang of Sutherland on Sunday, June 29, 2014, at Gothenburg Memorial Hospital, a son, George Washington, weighing 6 pounds, 10½ ounces.
He was welcomed home by sisters, Oktober and Athena.
Paternal grandparents are George VanDyke of Mount Airy, NC. Maternal grandparents are Richard and Heidi Montang of Sutherland.
Great-grandparent is Gene Dotson of Branch, AR.


text:
Fidel Castro said last year he was ending his second career as a columnist. But the retired leader is apparently so consumed by world affairs that he's making a comeback.
In a column published by official media Wednesday, Castro denies a recent report by a Russian newspaper alleging that Cuba refused to let NSA leaker Edward Snowden pass through the island en route to Latin America.
Castro calls that a "paid-for lie." He says he admires Snowden's "bravery."
The Cuban leader first broke his hiatus in April with an essay about tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Last month state media carried a letter by Castro about the seizure in Panama of Cuban weaponry bound for North Korea.


text:
A trio of unconventional sisters with a passion for writing . . .
Proper young ladies of the ton—especially ones who have very small dowries—are not encouraged to have an interest in intellectual pursuits. Indeed, the only thing they are encouraged to pursue is an eligible bachelor. So, the headstrong Sloane sisters must keep their passions a secret.
Ah, but secret passions are wont to lead a lady into trouble . . .
Miss Anna Sloane is in desperate need of some of peace and quiet. Much as she's enjoyed being part of her older sister's madcap misadventures with the Earl of Wrexham, they have wreaked havoc with her own secret endeavors. And with a deadline looming for her next racy romance novel, London—and the notorious "Devil" Davenport—is proving all too distracting. So Anna is happy to accept an invitation to a remote Scottish castle, even though she knows her mother will be matchmaking with the visiting German prince and his shooting party.
But the visit quickly takes an unexpected turn. Something sinister is afoot . . . including Davenport, whose presence ignites all sorts of alarming questions. Determined to discover just what he is up to, Anna decides to do some investigating—only to find that he, too, is hiding a surprising secret. They agree to a grudging alliance in order to foil a cunning conspiracy. But as danger swirls all around them, the biggest threat may be their own fiery passions . . .
Get a sneak peek of Cara Elliot's Sinfully Yours (available February 4, 2014) with an exclusive excerpt of a selected scene.
From his vantage point high in the tower, Devlin watched the line of carriages set off down the drive. So far, his plan was rolling along quite smoothly. With the castle empty of all but the servants for the day, he had the perfect opportunity to pursue his suspicions.
Starting with the mysterious Miss Anna Sloane.
"Two can play at manipulations," he muttered, flexing his fingers. Picking locks was a skill that he, too, possessed. "What is good for the goose is good for the gander—let us see how the lady likes having a stranger pry into her most private secrets."
[Log in or register to read the full excerpt of Sinfully Yours...]


text:
Gulf South Pipeline Company L P
Sixth Revised Volume No. 1
Contents / Previous / Next / Main Tariff Index
Effective Date: 05/14/2004, Docket: RP04-256-000, Status: Effective
First Revised Sheet No. 4756 First Revised Sheet No. 4756 : Effective
(c) Gulf South shall charge and CompanyName shall pay a
gathering charge per Dth as specified on Exhibit A for
gathered SLNs. If a gathering rate is not specified for a
gathered SLN, the maximum gathering rate authorized pursuant
to Gulf South's Tariff shall apply.
(d) Shipper shall also pay cash for fuel or provide through
retainage the maximum applicable fuel that Gulf South is
authorized to charge/collect under its Tariff for the
volumes actually transported.
(e) [If a specific requirement as set forth in Section 7.7
is the basis of the discount, then it will be established
2. The rates in Exhibit A are applicable to firm transportation service
using the Primary Point Pair(s) listed on Exhibit A. In the event that
CompanyName selects a point pair not listed on Exhibit A, or elects to utilize
its Primary Point Pair(s) in excess of the applicable Primary Point Pair
contract MDQ, then the applicable transportation rate for that portion of the
Agreement's MDQ shall be the maximum applicable tariff rate in Gulf South's
Tariff, plus fuel and all applicable surcharges that Gulf South is authorized
to charge under its Tariff, unless another rate is dictated by Section 7.8 of
Gulf South's Tariff or otherwise negotiated by Gulf South and CompanyName
prior to CompanyName's nomination using such point pair.
3. The rates set forth in Paragraph 2 are applicable to the firm
transportation service described in this Agreement between the specific
Primary Point Pairs listed on Exhibit A. To the extent that CompanyName
elects to flow gas to or from supplemental receipt point(s), supplemental
delivery point(s) or both as listed on Exhibits B and C, then the applicable
supplemental charges(s), if any, for those transactions shall be applied.
(a) For all other supplemental point transactions
where the point is not included on Exhibits B and C,
the rate shall be, subject to the terms of Section
7.8(b) of Gulf South's Tariff, the maximum applicable
transportation rate under the Tariff calculated on a
100% load factor basis, plus the maximum applicable
fuel rate and all applicable surcharges unless another
rate is agreed to by the parties.
(b) By mutual written agreement, both Exhibits B and C
may be modified to add or delete points, which can be
utilized by CompanyName on a supplemental basis at
discounted rates established by the parties.


text:
40,000-physician strike suspended in the UK, but hospitals still affected: 5 things to know
Forty thousand physicians in England planned a 24-hour walkout starting Tuesday that was called off late Monday.
The strikes were planned by junior physicians who seek a change in Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt's revised requirements for physician working conditions. Mr. Hunt wants to change physicians' contracts to create a seven-day NHS with non-emergency health services available across the weekend and outside office hours.
But the British Medical Association, the physicians' union, says that would result in physicians working dangerously long hours without overtime pay. Physicians in the United Kingdom are largely employed by the National Health Service, which provides free healthcare to all U.K. residents.
The NHS issued a warning to the public to avoid emergency departments during the first of three planned protests Tuesday. Late Monday, last-minute talks between the BMA and NHS resulted in the cancelation of all three planned protests, according to BBC. The move came too late for many hospitals and patients, though. Upwards of 4,000 routine procedures and treatments were already canceled in light of the planned walkouts.
Here are five things to know about the planned strike.
1. Mr. Hunt's contract aims to redefine physicians' normal work week to include Saturday, and narrow overtime pay rates. Currently, junior physicians receive greater pay for shifts worked any time on the weekend and between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. on weekdays. Under Mr. Hunt's plan, this higher pay rate would narrow, only applying between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. on weekdays and after 7 p.m. on Saturdays.
Physicians are concerned that the changes will remove safeguards preventing the NHS from overworking them. Virtually all junior physicians — 98 percent — supported strike action, according to The Guardian.
"We regret the inevitable disruption that this will cause but it is the government's adamant insistence on imposing a contract that is unsafe for patients in the future, and unfair for doctors now, that has brought us to this point," said a spokesman for BMA, according to The Guardian. "Rather than attacking junior doctors, the secretary of state should be taking up the BMA's offer to discuss how we resolve this dispute through [the advisory, conciliation and arbitration service]. It was disappointing that he appears already to have rejected this already."
2. The more than 40,000 junior physicians planned three days of protests in total. They planned to provide only emergency care for 24 hours beginning Tuesday, Dec. 1, at 8 a.m. The physicians were then poised to take full strikes from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Dec. 8 and 16. Army physicians were likely to be called in to provide care in place of physicians, according to The Guardian.
3. Mr. Hunt argues the extended work week is necessary to curb the dangers of lower weekend hospital staffing, as research shows patients are more likely to die during staff shortages over weekends than during weekdays when more staff are on call, according to the Daily Mail. He told The Guardian the BMA junior physicians, the chair of the Junior Doctors Committee and some "militant" supporters were trying to turn the contract dispute into "an ideological dispute when the truth is it is about improving patient care at weekends, nothing more, nothing less."
4. Although a temporary agreement was reached late Monday, hospitals already canceled surgeries or postponed treatments. One hospital canceled 80 percent of its planned operations Tuesday, according to the BBC, while others called off 10 to 25 percent.
5. The BMA has until 13 January to take action if the next round of talks does not reach a permanent agreement.
More articles on physician issues:
WellSpan, Good Samaritan Hospital align brands following integration
Physicians lag in acceptance of value-based care
Emotional intelligence: A new measure for MDs
© Copyright ASC COMMUNICATIONS 2017. Interested in LINKING to or REPRINTING this content? View our policies by clicking here.


text:
HobbyPartz.com - The second worst Customer Service on the Planet
Below is my chat record. In short, I ordered a 3S 5000Mah LiPo and received a 5S 5000Mah Battery. They want me to pay return shipping and send my battery back in before they ship me the one I actually ordered. I paid for priority mail so I could have it for a weekend flying get together, and now I have to lay out cash for shipping and wait another 1-2 weeks for these people to come through. I think I am just going to dispute the charges on my credit card. When a company sends you the wrong item, they should be paying for return shipping and they should immediately ship out the proper one.
info: You are now chatting with 'Richard'
Richard: Hi, how can I help you?
Anthony: Hey Richard, you guys just shipped me out one of these: http://www.hobbypartz.com/77p-sl5000-5s1p-40c-5555.html
Anthony: and I ordered one of these: http://www.hobbypartz.com/77p-sl5000-3s1p-40c-3333.html
Richard: Let me check for you
Richard: You got a 5 cell instead of a 3 cell?
Anthony: Yes.
Anthony: big price difference on your end too!
Richard: Thank you for waiting. I'll be with you in just a moment.
Anthony: sure take your time
Richard: Could you actually send a picture of the battery you received as well as a picture of the shipping label?
Richard: r@$$firstname.lastname@example.com
Anthony: sure, gimme 2 mins
Richard: No problem. Let me know when you send it.
Anthony: just sent it out from anthony@#%@$%#.com
Richard: Alright give me a second.
Richard: Okay, I'll have an RMA email sent out to you. Go down to your post office and use the FLAT RATE SHIPPING which costs 4.95.
Richard: We'll refund you the 4.95 when we get the battery back.
Anthony: Parcel post, with no tracking?
Anthony: And whatabout the pack I was supposed to receive?
Richard: When we get the battery back, we'll ship you out the correct ones.
Anthony: Not good. I need the pack by this weekend, thats why I ordered via priority mail.
Anthony: You guys messed up the order, and now you want me to lay out cash, wait extra time, and then get what I actually ordered. All after being honest about receiving a $63 pack in place of a $38 one?
Anthony: The way it should work is like this. You send me out a prepaid shipping label, with the pack I ordered, I then place your pack in the package that the new one came in and mail it back to you. That's how professional companies handle it when they make a mistake.
Richard: We'll refund you for the return shipping cost.
Anthony: You already said that.
Anthony: I would like the pack I ordered before the weekend.
Richard: Theres no way we can get it to you before this weekend.
Anthony: Yes, there is. You can send it via priority mail the way you sent this package.
Anthony: There is a way.
Richard: We would need the battery back before we send out your battery.
Anthony: I would need the pack I ordered before I send this one back. Its my ordering policy.
Richard: We can't ship anything out until we get the battery back.
Anthony: Wow, so not only do you want to inconvenience me by sending out the wrong item, but you want me to lay out cash, waste my time going to a post office in NYC, and screw up my weekend plans due to your company's error. And I have to wait what 1-2 weeks to get what I already paid for and ordered???
Anthony: I will call and email your customer services. You guys are about to get blasted on RC Groups as well as Facebook.
Anthony: POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Richard: I do apologize you feel that way.
Richard: Anything else I can help you with today?
Anthony: https://www.rcgroups.com/vendor-talk-21/ -----------That's where you can look for your negative review.
Anthony: You haven't helped me with anything, you've just wasted more of my time.
Last edited by YouMadeMeDoIt; Jan 27, 2012 at 12:17 PM.
I'd say you made out well! I wouldn't complain about it even though it may have messed up your weekend flying. You can always offer up that battery for sale here and come out ahead.
Even though I have issues with them advertising hardware for sale that they cannot, or will not restock, they have resolved discrepancies between us.
They refused to send me a prepaid shipping label, so since they did not send me what I ordered and will not pay for it to be shipped back up front -- I just disputed the charges on my Credit Card.
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text:
ANZ offers Corporates and Institutions a full suite of loan solutions, ranging from Vanilla Short-Term Debt, Working Capital facilities to Term Loans, Acquisition Financing and Syndicated Debt.
Syndicated Debt
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Other than our commitment to Indonesia, the ANZ Regional team provides coverage across Asia, specifically focussing on ANZ's key markets of Greater China, Indochina, India and Singapore which handles ANZ's Syndications arrangements for originating, underwriting and distributing financing solutions for corporate and structured finance transactions in both primary and secondary markets.
The Syndications Indonesia team can assist you with:
- Loan underwritings and sell down in Indonesia
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Learn more about ANZ loans.
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text:
Organizations are increasingly turning to executive coaching to enhance the performance of their current leaders, and their future, high-potential leaders. Do you know how, why and when coaching is most effective?
BPI group recently spoke with senior-level executives, including CEOs and CHROs, to learn their thoughts on the ROI of executive coaching and topics like:
Download this extensive Q&A article to hear their candid insights, and learn the best way to leverage executive coaching in your own organization.
All rights reserved © BPI group 2014


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By Rick Bella
The Oregonian
MOLALLA, Ore. — Oregon State Police are investigating a crash on Oregon 211 west of Molalla Thursday night that resulted in minor injuries to Colton Fire Chief Richard Beaudoin.
Beaudoin was driving the Colton Fire District's marked GMC Yukon south on Oregon 211 near South Needy Road around 10:15 p.m., when an oncoming passenger car suddenly came into his lane. Beaudoin said he took evasive action to avoid a head-on crash, then drove onto the shoulder, lost control, crossed the highway and crashed into an embankment, facing the wrong way.
"I had about two seconds to make the decision — hit head-on or go into the ditch," Beaudoin said. "When I hit the ditch, it sling-shotted me across the highway and into a berm."
He said fire district's Yukon was so badly damaged and that he couldn't move it. The driver's-side door wouldn't budge, so he climbed out through the back seat.
Three or four minutes later, a southbound Honda Accord came over the hill and crashed into the front of the Yukon.
"We always tell people in a crash to stay where they are," Beaudoin said. "But something told me to get out of the Yukon. Now, I'm glad I did."
Beaudoin was taken by ambulance to Silverton Hospital, where he was treated and released.
The Honda Accord's driver, Daniel Schrock, 54, of Harrisburg, and an adult male passenger, were not injured.
Lt. Gregg Hastings, Oregon State Police spokesman, said Beaudoin was using safety restraints when his Yukon hit the embankment. The airbags in the vehicle deployed. State police were assisted at the scene by Clackamas County sheriff's deputies and a crew from the Monitor Fire District.
Beaudoin said the vehicle veered into his lane was black, with tinted windows, but that he couldn't catch the license plates.
"I'm pretty stiff and sore today — especially in the chest," Beaudoin said. "I'm going to have to lay low for a while."
(c)2014 The Oregonian (Portland, Ore.)
Distributed by MCT Information Services


text:
Lili Elbe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|Lili Elbe
Lili Elbe in 1926
|Einar Magnus Andreas Wegener
28 December 1882
Vejle, Denmark
|13 September 1931 (aged 48)
Dresden, Germany
|Other names
|Lili Ilse Elvenes
Lili Ilse Elvenes, better known as Lili Elbe (28 December 1882 – 13 September 1931), was a Danish transgender woman and one of the first identifiable[1] recipients of sex reassignment surgery.[2] Elbe was born Einar Magnus Andreas Wegener[3] and was a successful artist under that name. She also presented as Lili (sometimes spelled Lily) and was publicly introduced as Einar's sister. After transitioning, however, she made alegal name change to Lili Ilse Elvenes[4] and stopped painting.
Elbe's year of birth is sometimes stated as 1886. This appears to be from a book about her, which has some facts changed to protect the identities of the persons involved. Factual references to the life of Elbe's wife Gerda Gottlieb indicate that the 1882 date is correct since they clearly married while at college in 1904.[5][6] It is highly likely that Elbe was an intersex person,[7][8][9][10] though it is disputed by some.[11]
Her autobiography Man into Woman, was published in 1933.[12]
Marriage and modelling[edit]
Elbe met Gerda Gottlieb at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen,[13] and they married in 1904, when Gottlieb was 18 and Wegener was 22.[5] The two of them worked as illustrators, with Elbe specializing in landscape paintings, while Gottlieb illustrated books and fashion magazines. They both traveled through Italy and France, eventually settling in Paris in 1912, where Elbe could live openly as a woman, and Gottlieb a lesbian.[5] Elbe received the Neuhausens prize in 1907 and exhibited at Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling (the Artists Fall Exhibition), at the Vejle Art Museum, and in the Saloon and Salon d'Automme in Paris. She is represented at Vejle Art Museum in Denmark.[14]
Elbe started dressing in women's clothes one day filling in for Gottlieb's absentee model; she was asked to wear stockings and heels so her legs could substitute for those of the model. Elbe felt surprisingly comfortable in the clothing.[14] Over time, Gottlieb became famous for her paintings of beautiful women with haunting almond-shaped eyes dressed in chic fashions. In 1913, the unsuspecting public was shocked to discover that the model who had inspired Gottlieb's depictions of petites femmes fatales was in fact Gottlieb's spouse, "Elbe".[5]
In the 1920s and 1930s, Elbe regularly presented as a woman, attending various festivities and entertaining guests in her house. One of the things she liked to do was disappear, wearing her modeling fashions into the streets of Paris in the throngs of revelers during the Carnival.[15][16] Elbe was introduced by Gottlieb as Einar Wegener's sister when she was dressed in female attire.[2] Only her closest friends knew once she had transitioned.
Surgeries and dissolution of marriage[edit]
In 1930, Elbe went to Germany for sex reassignment surgery, which was experimental at the time. A series of four operations were carried out over a period of two years.[16] The first surgery, removal of the testicles, was made under the supervision of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin.[16] The rest of Elbe's surgeries were carried out by Kurt Warnekros, a doctor at the Dresden Municipal Women's Clinic.[17] The second operation was to implant an ovary onto her abdominal musculature, the third to remove the penis and the scrotum,[18] and the fourth to transplant a uterus and construct a vaginal canal.[19][20]
At the time of Elbe's last surgery, her case was already a sensation in newspapers of Denmark and Germany. A Danish court invalidated the Wegeners' marriage in October 1930,[21] and Elbe managed to get her sex and name legally changed, including receiving a passport as Lili Ilse Elvenes. She stopped painting, believing it to be something that was part of the identity of Einar. After the dissolution of her marriage, she returned to Dresden for a final surgery.
Lili was almost certainly intersexed.[22] But it is unclear exactly of what type. She certainly had a feminine body and facial features that allowed her to pass as a young woman better than she passed as a man. When presenting in public as a man, she was often taken for a young woman masquerading as a man in trousers. Hormonal assays taken just before her first surgery indicated more female than male hormones present. Some reports indicate that Elbe already had rudimentary ovaries in her abdomen.[19] It is likely that she had XXY sex chromosome karyotype (Klinefelter syndrome) a condition not medically recognized until 1942.[23]
Lili began a relationship with French art dealer Claude Lejeune, with whom she wanted to marry and have children, and was looking forward to her final surgery involving a uterus transplant, so that they could one day have children.[20][22][24]
In June 1931, Elbe had her fourth operation, which consisted of implanting a uterus and the construction of a vagina, both of which were new and experimental procedures at that time.[19] With no medication to prevent organ rejection, she did not recover and died on September 13, 1931, three months after the surgery due to cardiac arrest caused by the rejection of the uterus by her immune system and the resulting infection.[19][20][20][24][22][25]
After the death of Elbe, whom she described to a friend as "my poor little Lily [sic]"[citation needed], Gottlieb went on to marry an Italian military officer, aviator, and diplomat, Major Fernando "Nando" Porta, and moved to Morocco. Fernando burned through all of Gerda's savings, and after living for several years in Marrakech and Casablanca, the Portas divorced. Gottlieb then returned to Denmark, where she died "penniless" in 1940.[20]
In popular culture[edit]
The LGBT film festival MIX Copenhagen gives four "Lili" awards named after Elbe.[26]
The Danish Girl : a novel / David Ebershoff. - New York, Viking, 2000 (New edition: New York, Penguin, 2015). Ebershoff's novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Lili Elbe.[27] It was an international bestseller and was translated into a dozen languages. The film version produced by Gail Mutrux and Neil LaBute and starring Eddie Redmayne as Elbe, and was well received at the Venice Film Festival in September 2015,[28] although it has been criticized for its casting of a cisgender man to play a trans woman.[29] Topics including Gerda's sexuality, which is evidenced by the subjects in her erotic drawings,[30] and the disintegration of Gerda and Lili's relationship after their annulment are omitted in both the novel[31] and the film.
Both the 2015 film and the 2000 Ebershoff novel have also received some critical attention for their notable deviations from historical fact.[20][22][32][33] Ebershoff has stated that he did not intend for the book to be an accurate representation of the facts, and that much of the content of his novel - particularly in his characterization of Lili and of Gerda - had instead been fabricated for creative reasons.[34]
- ^ Hirschfeld, Magnus. Chirurgische Eingriffe bei Anomalien des Sexuallebens: Therapie der Gegenwart, pp. 67, 451–455
- ^ ab Lili Elbe. andrejkoymasky.com. 17 May 2003
- ^ Meyer, Sabine (2015), »Wie Lili zu einem richtigen Mädchen wurde« – Lili Elbe: Zur Konstruktion von Geschlecht und Identität zwischen Medialisierung, Regulierung und Subjektivierung, p. 15, pp. 312-313.
- ^ (Meyer 2015, pp. 311–314)
- ^ ab c d She and She: The Marriage of Gerda and Einar Wegener. The Copenhagen Post. 3 July 2000
- ^ "Ejner Mogens Wegener, 28-12-1882, Vejle Stillinger: Maler". Politietsregisterblade.dk. Retrieved 30 December2011.
- ^ Hoyer, ed., Niels (2004). Man into woman : the first sex change, a portrait of Lili Elbe : the true and remarkable transformation of the painter Einar Wegener. London: Blue Boat Books. pp. vii, 26–27, 172. ISBN 9780954707200.
- ^ "Lili Elbe's autobiography, Man into Woman". OII Australia – Intersex Australia. OII Australia. Retrieved1 September 2015.
- ^ Vacco, Patrick (29 April 2014). "Les Miserables Actor Eddie Redmayne to Star as Queer Artist Lili Elbe". The Advocate. Retrieved 1 September 2015.
- ^ "Could this be Eddie Redmayne's most challenging role?". Daily Mail. 1 September 2015. Retrieved1 September 2015.
- ^ Kaufmann, Jodi (January 2007). "Transfiguration: a narrative analysis of male‐to‐female transsexual".International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 20(1): 1–13. doi:10.1080/09518390600923768.
- ^ "Lili Elbe - Painter - Biography.com". biography.com. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
- ^ "Conway's Vintage Treasures". Vintage-movie-poster.com. Retrieved 8 April 2014.
- ^ ab The Arts and Transgender. renaissanceblackpool.org
- ^ Gerda Wegener. get2net.dk
- ^ ab c "Lili Elbe (1886–1931)". LGBT History Month. Retrieved 8 April 2014.
- ^ Brown, Kay (1997) Lili Elbe. Transhistory.net.
- ^ (Meyer 2015, pp. 271–281)
- ^ ab c d "Lili Elbe Biography". Biography.com. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
- ^ ab c d e f Harrod, Horatia (8 December 2015). "The tragic true story behind The Danish Girl". The Telegraph. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
- ^ (Meyer 2015, pp. 308–311)
- ^ ab c d "The Danish Girl (2015)". HistoryVSHollywood.com. History vs Hollywood. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
- ^ "Matt & Andrej Koymasky - Famous GLTB - Lili Elbe".HistoryVSHollywood.com. Matt & Andrej Koymasky. 17 May 2003. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
- ^ ab "Lili Elbe: the transgender artist behind The Danish Girl". This Week Magazine. 18 September 2015. Retrieved1 February 2016.
- ^ "Lili Elbe (Einar Wegener) 1882-1931".Danmarkshistorien.dk (in Danish). Danmarkshistorien.dk. 10 September 2013. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
- ^ "In Competition". MIX Copenhagen. Retrieved March 5,2015.
- ^ "BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Radical Change and Enduring Love". The New York Times. February 14, 2000. RetrievedDecember 11, 2015.
- ^ "'The Danish Girl' Wows With 10-Minute Standing Ovation In Venice Premiere". Deadline. 5 September 2015. Retrieved 6 September 2015.
- ^ Denham, Jess (September 1, 2015). "The real reason Eddie Redmayne was cast as a trans woman in The Danish Girl". The Independent. Retrieved September 2, 2015.
- ^ "The Incredibly True Adventures of Gerda Wegener and Lili Elbe". coilhouse.net. August 3, 2012. Retrieved January 26,2016.
- ^ "Reading Group Notes The Danish Girl".allenandunwin.com. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
- ^ Sexton, David (8 September 2015). "The Danish Girl: the true story behind Tom Hooper's transgender film starring Eddie Redmayne". The Evening Standard. Retrieved11 December 2015.
- ^ Goldstein, Jessica (3 March 2015). "The True Story Behind 'The Danish Girl,' Eddie Redmayne's Next Role".ThinkProgress.com. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
- ^ Rosman, Lisa. "The Heart of 'The Danish Girl': A Conversation with David Ebershoff". Word & Film. Retrieved11 December 2015.
Further reading[edit]
- Man into woman: an authentic record of a change of sex / Lili Elbe ; edited by Niels Hoyer [i.e. E. Harthern] ; translated from the German by H.J. Stenning ; introd. by Norman Haire. - London, Jarrold Publisher's, 1933 (Original Danish ed. published in 1931 under title: Fra mand til kvinde. Later edition: Man into woman: the first sex change, a portrait of Lili Elbe - the true and remarkable transformation of the painter Einar Wegener. - London, Blue Boat Books, 2004.
- Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft by Dr. Rainer Herrn (2005), pp. 204–211. ISBN 3-89806-463-8. German study containing a detailed account of the operations of Lili Elbe, their preparations and the role of Magnus Hirschfeld.
- »Wie Lili zu einem richtigen Mädchen wurde« – Lili Elbe: Zur Konstruktion von Geschlecht und Identität zwischen Medialisierung, Regulierung und Subjektivierung by Sabine Meyer (2015),ISBN 978-3-8376-3180-7.
- "When a woman paints women" / Andrea Rygg Karberg and "The transwoman as model and co-creator: resistance and becoming in the back-turning Lili Elbe" / Tobias Raun in Gerda Wegener / edited by Andrea Rygg Karberg ... [et al.]. - Ishøj, Arken, 2015.
External links[edit]
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lili Elbe.
- Lili Elbe on Biography.com
- Lili Elbe on LGBT History Month
- Sabine Meyer: Mit dem Puppenwagen in die normative Weiblichkeit. Lili Elbe und die journalistische Inszenierung von Transsexualität in Dänemark. In: NORDEUROPAforum 20 (2010:1–2), 33–61. Article in German scholarly journal
- Represented in ARKEN Museum of Modern Art's Gerda Wegener exhibition 7. november 2015 til 16. maj 2016


text:
Following an 'interesting' summer, Luis Suarez definitively confirms he'll be staying at Liverpool
Liverpool star Luis Suarez arrived in Uruguay today for International duty and was asked about his future once again.
The troublesome striker had publicly stated his desire to leave but was forced down by the club following a bid of £40,000,001 from Arsenal.
On Deadline Day Suarez gave reporters some quotes ending the Suarez transfer saga once and for all.
Luis Suarez after landing in Uruguay this afternoon: "I closed this subject a while ago. I have already taken the decision to stay at Liverpool."
"If I play I am talked about, if don't play its the same… They've already put me in every team."
"In that moment I said if something happens then good, but if I was staying at Liverpool Id be delighted. This is over a while now."


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text:
Guess Who?
Today we've got a special quadruple Guess Who? for you to attempt. To make it easy on you, we'll give you the points if you can get one of these star chefs correct (enter only one name at a time). Think you know who recently attended the grand opening of The Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas?


text:
Broken Saints
The 12 hour graphic novel epic that resulted from three years of dedication.
It's a series!
The Little Buzzers
A cute cartoon, inspired by unadulterated rage and hatred.
Log in to save your medals! Don't have an account? Create one for free!
Not bad!
Really not a bad game at all. Pretty addicting. While it does get a bit old after a while, the general concept is pretty creative. And the game isn't easy either, which adds on another good aspect of it. And the music is really addicting as well. I caught myself humming and head bobbing to it a bit. So...all in all, good, creative game. :]
Great concept, but the execution could use a reboo
This is an interesting game mechanic and the game has a wonderful aesthetic. That said, if the game is supposed to be about clouds, I want to see some clouds -- drift and billow and all -- and not some white beads. Of course it makes the puzzles a little less precise and a little more to do with timing and so forth, but I think it's worth rethinking the dynamic a little. At one extreme, you'd have a pure strategy game where pressing the arrows would move the cloud by exactly one block; since you've rejected this (and rightly so), it would definitely be worthwhile to make the clouds just a little more cloudlike.
Really makes you think at times. The music is soothing, (those that say it's bad can go suck something that they wouldn't want to) the controlls responsive, and the sub-story going on in the background was compelling. Nice game, really teaches you to be patient.
Really wish i had cloud insurance now lololololol fun game not to hard but u cant be stupid bout things plus a fun concept keep it up
a normal game, but with this musci It is a ... so fucking crazy Oo


text:
By Lori Robertson Lori Robertson (email@example.com), a former AJR managing editor, is a senior contributing writer for the magazine.
The BBC
Video of U.S. soldiers forcing Iraqis to the ground in a raid: "Get down, down, down. Get out, on the ground...."
Correspondent RUSSELL TROTT: "Peacekeeping, American style. It may look aggressive, but it's designed to catch Baghdad's gunmen unawares and ultimately save lives."
A U.S. soldier talking to an Iraqi man: "You help me find the bad guys and all their mortars or we come back with our tanks and we drive through your fields and run over your houses."
Trott: "However, many Iraqis accuse U.S. soldiers of using excessive strong-arm tactics. And a report by the American-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch says they may have overreacted to perceived threats during house-to-house raids.
"And out on the streets, combat soldiers being used to guard checkpoints have resulted in the shooting of civilians who failed to stop. American soldiers, says the report, are operating with virtual impunity in Iraq, free to spray bullets if they feel cornered. Human Rights Watch says it has credible reports of 94 civilian deaths in Baghdad alone...."
Trott later says: "The Pentagon meanwhile has vehemently rejected any suggestion that its troops may have been behaving recklessly. A spokesman says American soldiers went to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian deaths even at the risk of their own lives."
View the complete clip at: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3209426.stm
Fox News Channel
BRIT HUME: "And now the most compelling two minutes in television, the latest from the 'Wartime Grapevine.'
"Human Rights Watch, which warned earlier this year of a humanitarian disaster if the U.S. went to war in Iraq, is now denouncing American troops for using lethal force when ambushed by Iraqi insurgents and for behaving with, quote, 'unnecessary rudeness towards Iraqi civilians.' In a new report, the organization accuses the U.S. military of killing at least 94 civilians in Baghdad under, quote, 'questionable legal circumstances' and then failing to properly investigate those deaths. According to Human Rights Watch, only five high-level investigations have been concluded."
CBS News
Reporter ALLEN PIZZEY: "With ambushes and roadside bombs a daily occurrence, U.S. troops in Iraq operate under rules designed for war. A Human Rights Watch report claims that has created 'an atmosphere of impunity in which many soldiers feel they can pull the trigger without coming under review.' The 82nd Airborne in Fallujah was singled out.
"Fallujah was one of the last places in this part of Iraq to be taken over by conquering U.S. troops and initially it offered them the least resistance, and then something went wrong.
"For example, in April, 18 civilians killed and at least 78 wounded when 82nd Airborne troops fire on protesters. In September, 10 Iraqi police dead and 10 wounded when the 82nd mistakes them for the enemy. In the same month, south of Baghdad, two civilians, including a 12-year-old girl, killed in response to a shot through a door."
Fred Abrahams (Human Rights Watch): "I counted more than 177 rounds hitting this north wall, and over a 30-yard area. I believe that there was a disproportionate response by the 82nd Airborne."
Pizzey: "But that's how they are allowed to respond to anyone defined as hostile."
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez (Commander, Coalition Forces): "It is our mission and it is within our rules of engagement to pursue that hostile force until he either surrenders or he is defeated or destroyed."
View the complete clip at: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/21/eveningnews/main579297.shtml


text:
2015 report blog
Hello, everyone! My blog contains recapitulation of my eSports year of 2015. So take a cup of tea, make yourself comfortable and have a nice time reading my report of 2015.
|All blogs
|30 December 2015, 17:22
|2561 0 More
Author column by Na`Vi.prb. June
It's 12 AM, as I write these lines. I'm sitting in Natus Vincere office and I'm the only employee, who stays at work so late today. It's noisy though: the builders are finishing one more storey of our new office.
|All blogs
|23 June 2015, 20:16
|5942 0 More
Blog by the manager of Dota 2 squad
Aloha, guys! It's so thrilling to write the first (!!!) blog in my life, but I need to do it, as my work obliges me to do it : ). I will tell you much interesting, including the training process, team environment and the news. Let's go!
|All blogs
|13 January 2015, 22:38
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Vanskor's Blog #1
I had no desire to fly to Kyiv at all. So after some contemplations we chose another way. We spent one night in the train from Moscow to Kyiv. The beginning of the journey was funny.
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|18 November 2014, 20:32
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Dendi: We need your help!
Hello, everyone! I ask for your help :) We need your support very much! As far as you know, we lost the qualifiers of Beyond The Summit 2, the tournament to be held in Los Angeles from 4 to 8 December.
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|14 November 2014, 17:56
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Author column by Na`Vi.prb. November
The blog covers the possible reasons of changes in roster of DotA 2 and World of Tanks squads, the moods inside the team after the reshuffles, the plans of the organization and many other things.
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|4 November 2014, 15:16
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Na`Vi.ceh9 Blog - #2
Hi, folks! In my second blog I will speak about my trip to ESEA with the CS:GO team. I guess there's no secret that our team will go to Dallas in the end of June, to participate in the final stage of the tournament.
|All blogs
|27 June 2014, 11:12
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Na`Vi.Dota 2 manager's blog #2
Preamble: Since I wrote the previous post in Russian and the English speaking community had to do with a rough translation, I am doing this one in English, and I am sure someone will get it translated to Russian.
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|22 June 2014, 16:30
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Blog #1 by Na`Vi.1437
Post-Summit LAN we had a 3 day cool down period where we returned home to prepare for our boot camp in Daytona Beach, Florida where we would spend our next month preparing for TI4. What was 2 days back home merely felt like a couple of hours.
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|20 June 2014, 23:24
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Home games in CS:GO?!
As a perfectionist, I think about the details all the time. Details in everything. Little things. Little things that are very important. The most important discoveries were made due to small things. The best gadgets and services are composed and refined wi
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text:
Other than a zoo or a television documentary have you seen these beautiful animals interacting in their natural habitat?
I was blessed to be able to do so on more than one occasion. They are social animals & present danger when only trapped or one of their offspring is in danger.
I do not understanding what is the use, in slaughtering these gentle giants. Other than using their ivory for your personal ecstatic pleasure/status symbol.
Rather reminds of of the Nazis' and their slaughtering to get gold out of teeth!
Please help & sign this. Thank you !


text: Ok so I went and picked up my quilt from the LAQ shop I was so excited. I thought it really was great ! Very happy with the way it turned out. I could not bind it till this morning. So as I was binding it there is a small place where it looks like the tip of a pair of scissors clipped it. I was upset but just thought that would be a good place to put may label or maybe i will but a butterfly as mt sorta trade mark what do you think. It is in the washing machine and soon as it is dry I will try and post a picture. Thanks


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Editorial: May 2014 Hardnews Bureau Delhi
Images of the Bharatiya Janata Party leader Rajnath Singh wearing a skull cap and Narendra Modi rejecting it inspired many a heated debate on secularism at a time when Hinduism is used for politica
The SC ruling that recognizes transgenders as a third gender category is historic — if not a little late in the day — but the long struggle for equal rights for all has only just begunSouzeina S Mushtaq Delhi
Another one of Chetan Bhagat's unreadable works of fiction gets an infusion of life by the commercial geniuses of Indian cinemaSonali Ghosh Sen Delhi
Moin Qureshi, the meat exporter raided by the IT department, appears to be a hawala operator linked to top politicians and bureaucratsSadiq Naqvi Delhi
Taking a tip from some very, very senior and highly respected journalists and some very, very senior but not as highly respected news anchors, I have decided to write nice things a
A definitive guide to the rock musicscape of India in the 1960s and '70s, Sidharth Bhatia's India Psychedelic is an essential read for any music junkieShone Satheesh Babu Delhi
Ratna Raman Delhi
Months after they fled their homes because of the communal flare-up, many of the displaced victims of the Muzaffarnagar riots returned to their villages to cast their votes.
The Pakistani media has seen bad times in the past, and been punished heavily for its stand for democracy.
What started as mere documentation became a serious project to engage with politics at the ground that gave birth to the Aam Aadmi PartySouzeina S Mushtaq Delhi


text:
The day after Christmas, opening day for Santa Anita's winter meeting saw two track records taken down by The Factor and Twirling Candy. Could there be a repeat Sunday on Del Mar's showcase 11-race card?
Twirling Candy is the slight 5-2 morning-line favorite over Game on Dude (3-1) in the $1 million TVG Pacific Classic over 1¼ miles.
The Factor is expected to challenge Smiling Tiger in the $250,000, Grade I Pat O'Brien Stakes at 7 furlongs.
On Dec. 26, The Factor broke his maiden and a Santa Anita record, covering 6 furlongs in 1:06.80. Later that day, Twirling Candy eclipsed Spectacular Bid's record for 7 furlongs in 1:19.60 in the Grade I Malibu Stakes.
The Factor, a 3-year-old colt trained by Bob Baffert and ridden by Martin Garcia, went on to win his next two starts at increasing distances before finishing seventh in the 1 1/8-mile Arkansas Derby on April 16. He hasn't raced since but has had five good workouts here this summer.
Smiling Tiger, second in the Grade I Bing Crosby Stakes on July 31 and third in the Pat O'Brien last year, has eight wins in 17 starts and has earned nearly $1.2 million.
Joel Rosario will ride Smiling Tiger and Twirling Candy, a 4-year-old colt with seven wins in 10 starts for trainer John Sadler. Twirling Candy was named Del Mar's top 3-year-old last year after winning the Oceanside Stakes and Del Mar Derby for a 4-for-4 career start.
The Pacific Classic will feature 10 horses after Bourbon Bay was scratched Thursday in favor of a start in Sunday's $200,000 Grade II Del Mar Handicap, a 1 3/8-mile trek on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course.
The Del Mar Handicap and Pacific Classic are both "Win and You're In" races, qualifying the winner for free entry and transportation to the Breeders' Cup Turf and Classic, respectively.
Do It All ($9.00) made the most of his Del Mar debut. With Rafael Bejarano riding the 4-year-old colt for the first time, they broke the Polytrack record for one mile in 1:35.28. Albertus Maximus had the standard with a 1:35.37 in 2008. Do It All outdueled odds-on-favorite Massone down the stretch in the first race — at $70,000, the largest purse of the day — to give trainer Eoin G. Harty his fourth win in 14 starts (29 percent).
•Karma? When Scott McKeever took home $900,000 with a lone Pick Six winner last month, a squabble later ensued with trainer Paul Aguirre and jockey Alonso Quinonez over promised bonus money from the key winner in the payout. McKeever later transferred some of his horses from Aguirre's barn to Doug O'Neill's. One of those was Orbach, who lost a photo finish to Edgewick Road ($6.60) in the fifth race. Edgewick Road was ridden by Quinonez.
•Mighty Caroline, a 2-year-old filly and winner of the $150,000 Grade III Sorrento Stakes on Aug. 5, has been retired due to a suspensory ligament injury on her right front leg. "It most likely happened in the race, but it didn't show up until a few days afterward," said trainer Melody Conlon, whose Sorrento win was her first stakes victory.
•With two wins, Joel Rosario briefly tied Joe Talamo atop the jockey standings with 33 wins, then Talamo won the last race with Evita's Crown to give him 34.
•After further review, Brown is Beige ($16.20) under Edwin Maldonado captured a 4-horse photo finish in the second race, nosing Teddy's Promise, Miss Georgie Girl and My Untamed Heart. There has yet to be a dead heat declared this meet, but this one was close.


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KAI RYSSDAL: Wall Street firms are swimming in profits. Today Bear Stearns announced its fourth quarter earnings swelled by 38-perecent. That's a company record. Lehman Brothers' profits jumped 22 percent. Of course all that's nothing next to Goldman Sachs. Earlier this week the investment bank turned in the biggest quarter in Wall Street history. With all this money sloshing around, it's hard to believe we're in the midst of slowing economic growth. Marketplace's Amy Scott reports.
AMY SCOTT: The stars have aligned for Wall Street banks. It's been a huge year for mergers and acquisitions. And the big firms are raking in the advising and investment banking fees. Eileen Fahey with Fitch Ratings says the stock market boom hasn't hurt either.
EILEEN FAHEY: Everything seems to be working in their favor. The M&A business and investment banking businesses are doing quite well, the trading businesses are doing well, both equity and fixed income as well as commodities. And because of those efforts, the asset management businesses are also doing well.
Jeffrey Harte follows the major investment banks for Sandler O'Neill. He says Wall Street firms often do well when the economy is still growing, but that growth is starting to slow.
JEFFREY HARTE: That tends to be where corporate profits start to slow down little bit, corporations start looking to do more things, be it make acquisitions, make divestitures, find alternative sources of financing. So as long as the economy keeps growing, kind of the later-cycle growth time can actually be the best environment for these stocks.
Harte expects the good times to last through next year. But some are predicting a recession in 2007, and a slowing economy would likely kill the party. Securities industry employment still hasn't quite recovered from the last recession.
In New York, I'm Amy Scott for Marketplace.


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Heat and Energy Recovery Ventilators
If you build green brownstones you build homes that don't breathe without help. A green home is a well sealed and insulated home. It does not have all the normal cracks through which the house normally breathes (and leaks!).
So you need to make up for that. There are different opinions but right now I like Heat and Energy Recovery Ventilators, aka HEV and HRV. In Brooklyn I like Energy Recovery Ventilators because that also takes care of humidity.
Check out this web site because it gives a great run down on Heat and Energy Recovery Ventilators.


text: Cairo - President Hosni Mubarak challenged the Egyptian opposition on Thursday to spell out their political programmes, warning them against "chaos", in his first speech since returning to Cairo.Mubarak, 82, arrived in the capital this week from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where he convalesced after surgery in Germany in March to remove his gall bladder.In his first live speech to an audience since the operation, Mubarak told a Workers' Day celebration that he remains committed to political reforms and supports an independent judiciary and free elections."The upcoming elections will be free and have integrity," he told the cheering audience.A parliamentary election is to be held later this year, followed early next year by a presidential poll. Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt since 1981, has yet to announce whether he will stand again."In this delicate period, there can be no room for those who fuse change with chaos," he said.He welcomed an increase in social activism but added: "I have apprehensions about those who slip ... into agitation that subjects Egypt and its sons to the dangers of regression."I say to those who raise slogans and content themselves with posturing: This is not enough to gain the trust of the people. They must respond to the questions of the poor. What can they offer them?" he said.Mubarak, whose government has faced criticism at home over its economic reforms, challenged opposition parties to submit their programmes on investment and job creation, and on foreign policy.Regular sit-insEgypt has won the praise of foreign investors but the economic reforms are widely seen as favouring wealthy businessmen while further impoverishing the country's poor.In his speech, Mubarak said that ordinary people should be the first to feel the benefits of investment and promised to raise salaries and create more jobs.Amid mounting labour activism, dozens of laid off workers have held regular sit-ins in front of parliament. Three civilians were killed during a workers' riot in the textile city of Mahalla in 2008 when police fired on the crowd.On the political front, Mubarak faces a restless opposition which fears he is grooming his son Gamal to succeed him.The country's strongest opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, controls a fifth of the seats in parliament through affiliated MPs although it is officially banned.The Brotherhood is expected to scale back participation in the parliamentary election after a police crackdown which has targeted senior members.The secular opposition consists of small, disorganised parties and activists, who have been galvanised by the return of former UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei to Egypt to press for reforms.ElBaradei, who calls for popular action to pressure the government, has said he will run for president only if the constitution, which restricts independent candidates, is amended.


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The Fact of Beauty
Artwork by Bud Caywood
Pieces that refer to The Fact of Beauty
- Golden by Dawn Corrigan – fiction
- Something Real by Elizabeth Rawlings – non-fiction
I like your story. Do I look for a hidden meaning other than you don't have a green thumb? I'm satisfied with something real…your art. Thank you.


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ELYRIA — An Oberlin man has pleaded no contest to charges of failure to stop at a railroad crossing and driving under suspension for a February accident in which a train struck the car he was driving.
Jeff Arndt, 23, originally was charged with driving under the influence because police suspected he might have been on drugs at the time of the crash, but those charges were dropped, according to Elyria Municipal Court records.
Arndt, driving a 1998 Honda Civic, sped through the train crossing on West Ridge Road as the gates were coming down. A train struck the car, but Arndt, who told police he was running late for work, did not sustain serious injuries.
Arndt also pleaded no contest in an unrelated DUI case from January.
For both cases, he received fines totaling $800 and a 13-day jail sentence. Additional time in jail and fines were suspended.


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Welcome to WebmasterWorld Guest from 18.104.22.168
Forum Moderators: open
Hi, be grateful if someone could help me out.
Inherited a site which allows users to upload music and video files.
I need to know..
1. what kind of server spec i should be looking for?
2. whether there maybe any issues with using MYSQL storage over file system storage i need to be aware of?
Video, and audio files maybe up to 5mb in size. With just a months worth of data, the database is 1Gb. Guess this could easily reach 20gb over next 12 months. Will this be an issue for MYSQL versus file system storage.
Will a rapidly growing mysql database eventually degrade in performance versus the file system? Will a larger DB require more ram, CPU?
MySQL permits "huge blobs", it stores them in a different place, so it doesn't cause problems with more conventionally-sized records. MySQL can span volumes, too, so that's not an issue.
I have to beleive that accessing huge blobs is no less efficient than accessing a flat file. After all, what is it doing for 999,999 bytes out a 1,000,000 byte file? A memory copy from a mapped file, and that is going to be the same for the file system or MySQL.
The disadvantage of storing the videos externally is that then you have to keep track of them. Lots of unnecessary code. And you have the possibility of having the videos get inconsistent with the rest of the database ("lost", inaccssible videos because the record was erase, the video wasn't, etc.)
Backups would probably be easier if everything was just in 1 SQL database though.
what happens when you need to expand to 2, 5, 10, 50 servers? You going to run 50 copies of MySQL? Would make a lot more sense running the videos off NAS or something similiar, no need for the extra overhead of having MySQL pumping out video bits.
There's no reason why you would need to run one MySQL server per web server. It's easy to forget that MySQL is a database SERVER. Although MySQL is commonly run on the same machine as the web server on small websites, there's certainly no requirement that you do this.
Your MySQL database can certainly reside on NAS. Or, you can consider the MySQL server and it's local storage as a form of NAS.
Bottom line, I doubt that serving videos from a MySQL database is measurably slower or more CPU or disk intensive than serving them from files. In either case, there is a bit of houskeeping when opening the file or row, and then it is just streaming bytes from disk. The overhead is practically non-existent.
There's no reason why you would need to run one MySQL server per web server.
It's how google, myspace and youtube setup their network. Not saying you have to do as they do, but I'm sure they looked at all the possibilities and chose the way they did for price and performance reasons.
I've never tried storing videos on a DB, but I did try storing images and that failed. I think with better hardware it would have worked out OK, but it wouldn't have been scalable without getting costly.
What happens when you have to move to 2, 5, 10 web servers, is that 1 DB server going to be able to keep up with the throughput it will take to server all those video files?
Possibly. Possibly not. But it probably is NOT a 1-1 correspondence. It will depends on what ELSE those webservers are doing, as well as what ELSE the MySQL server(s) are doing. BTW, MySQL *does* support clustering. Maybe yo need 10 web servers and 3 database servers. Maybe you need 2 web servers and 10 database servers. In any case, the flexibility is there to deal with whatever is required.
Again, streaming video is not paracticulary demanding - for a web server, a SQL server, or a file system. There isn't a lot of overhead involved, because once the data is located, it's a matter of streaming it - a lot of it - requiring little or no additional overhead.
It's not at all the same as the more typical database usage - that of bringing together serveral rows/columns of small data according to some sort and filtering critera. That is MUCH more intensive kind of activity than video streaming, and is much more likely to be the limiation on the SQL server(s). In fact, one thing that might help is to maintain several servers for video and for text data.
You need to do a calculation of average stream bandwidth vs. available hardware bandwidth. You need to study this for your broadband connection(s) to the Internet, your internal network connections, your web server(s), your SQL server(s), your disk system, your NAS (if any).
Wouldn't it make more sense storing all the videos on storage devices, use the DB to keep track of links and just push the videos from their file location?
No, for the various reasons stated above. I am not convinved that storing the vidoes in a database represents any significant increase in overhead.
It's how google, myspace and youtube setup their network.
Do you know that for a fact? Can you cite references?
From what I know, many of the largest players have multiple datacenters around the country (and world) where they basically replicate their entire system. This is probably the most important aspect of scaling that the big boys do that most of us never have to worry about. Yahoo, for example, peers directly with Cox. I think that some big players even colocate servers at Cox, Comcast, etc.
I've never tried storing videos on a DB, but I did try storing images and that failed.
How did it fail? Did you optimize the database for this use? For example, make a seperate table for the images (with no other field other than an ID), designate seperate storage for that table, choose an appropriate concurency model, etc.?


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If Nash sign should we go after Lin
Printable View
If Nash sign should we go after Lin
Adrian Wojnarowski @WojYahooNBA
The Knicks have emerged as frontrunners to land Steve Nash in a sign-and-trade deal, league sources tell Y! Sports.
Coming from Woj is not good. He is usually pretty solid.
I just went to create this thread ... see if anyone else was insanely anxious waiting for "The Decision - Canadian edition".
I was even going to call it "Nash Watch" ... well done.
Adrian Wojnarowski @WojYahooNBA
Knicks, Suns are in the critical stages of discussions on a sign-and-trade deal that would pay Nash $27M-$30M over 3 years, sources tell Y!
God damnit...I need more drywall
Adrian Wojnarowski @WojYahooNBA
Knicks, Suns are in the critical stages of discussions on a sign-and-trade deal that would pay Nash $27M-$30M over 3 years, sources tell Y!
Oh dear. Not looking good.
Adrian Wojnarowski @WojYahooNBA
NY package would include Iman Shumpert, Toney Douglas and likely 3 low money players to get Nash salary needed to close gap on Toronto offer
Marc Stein Marc Stein @ESPNSteinLine
Yet as one source familiar w/NYK thinking told ESPN: "They don't want to trade (Shumpert), but they will if they have to. They want Nash."
Oh the pain. Make it stop.
each tweet is another knife in the heart....
wow if nash goes to the knicks....fuck that would be the biggest gut shot this franchised has experienced since VC...which saying a lot since nash never even put a raptors jersey on. hopefully he changes his mind if the rumours are true but its not looking good......looks like the fields contract is crap lol
ESPNSteinLine Marc Stein
As @alanhahn notes, Knicks PREFER to chase Nash w/out Shumpert. Sources say they're trying to find third team to join proposal to avoid it
This really hurts.
To make this happen, the Knicks will have a roster of:
C: Tyson
PF: Amare
SF: Carmelo
PG: Nash
And that is all.
They will have $60M committed to 4 players and as soon as they use the MLE, they have a hard cap of $74M.
Shumpert and Douglas? Ouch ...
Well, it really comes down to where the man wants to play ... can't blame GM's or trade packages ... we could offer a much sweeter package to Phoenix, and more money to Nash ... but if he goes to NYK it's because that's the city he wants to land in.
Updated ESPN article from Marc Stein: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/81...and-steve-nash
I still don't understand why these articles seem to put the majority of the decision making power in the hands of Phoenix, when Nash is an UFA. Yes a S&T would be wonderful and benefit all parties, but at the end of the day, it's up to Nash to decide where he wants to play.
They will begin making Marvel comics strips about, "The Atlantic Division All-Stars" ... Melo, Deron, Nash, Amare, Pierce, Rondo, Joe Johnson, Iggy, GForce, KG ... The incredible Hulk gonna start for Philly later on?
This could only happen obviously if Nash is pushing for it. The players going back are not helpful to the Suns with Shumpert recovering and be in addition to Gordon. Nash as well is taking less. If true BC should cut bait unless h e has a viable backup plan for Nash. Me personally, TO is not his first option. So no thanks.
This is of course predicated on the veracity of the Yahoo info.


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We can help right away. Chat with a jewelry expert now!


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The Most Iconic Moments In Big East Tournament History
This year marks the Big East men's basketball tournament's 32nd year in existence and its 29th at Madison Square Garden.
Schools like UConn, Seton Hall, and South Florida will be looking for a few more wins to get off the bubble and solidify their spot in the field of 68.
Meanwhile, Syracuse, Marquette, and Georgetown hope to add a BE tourney title to their already impressive resumes.
The week-long madness at MSG has proved to be a sensational precursor to the NCAA tournament over the years.
From an insane six overtime game to unbelievable performances, the Big East tournament has become the pinnacle of conference championship week.
The biggest moments in recent Big East tournament history >> »
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Already, Indian American scientists and engineers are initiating a chain of innovation and entrepreneurship, which is taking new discoveries from science to technology to product to business in this emerging field. No wonder that a star investor such as Vinod Khosla of Kleiner & Perkins is taking a closer look at nanotechnology.
Patents in Nanotechnology
A recent survey by this correspondent shows that Indian Americans are walking away with a large chunk of inventions in nanotechnology -- as acknowledged by the United States Patent Office. For example, consider this: Tapesh Yadav, Founder and CEO of NanoProducts Corporation (Longmont, Colorado), has 28 issued and allowed patents on nanotechnology, and over 30 pending patents. Nine of those patents were obtained last year alone. A key contributor to the field while at MIT, Yadav recently demonstrated the feasibility of small, lightweight sensors that exploit the unique characteristics of nanoceramics in advanced aircraft engines, for a project at the NASA Lewis Research Center.
NanoProducts researchers have begun work on nanoscale devices that may lead to the formation of "plastic" circuit elements and circuit "sheets" fabricated with ink jet printers within three years. "The first generation of nanotechnology will just be performance enhancements to existing micromaterials-significant performance enhancements-but it´s the second generation, in about three years, that will start employing nanomaterials in much more significant quantities," said Yadav.
The lab fabricates nanoscale materials using the company´s patented Joule-Quench fabrication process, whereby powders whose grains are smaller than 100 nm in diameter are mass-produced.
"We can make nanoscale materials conducting or insulating or magnetic or with any of the properties that electrical engineers use to build devices, like dielectrics. We have a dielectric powder you could make capacitors with," said Yadav. He said the company´s subsidiary research lab is making actual devices like capacitors, inductors and resistors using technology based on its patents. "Just making the powder is not good enough; you have to know how they perform, so you can learn from that."
In the Joule-Quench process, a combustion of a precursor creates a stream that is heated into a plasma exceeding 3,000 K, after which cooling leads to nucleation (formation of nanoparticles). Sonic quenching is used to eliminate "sticky" collisions, thereby producing a steady stream of nanopowders.
According to Yadav, those materials are already being incorporated into current devices to enhance the characteristics of micron-sized materials. For the future, the lab is working on a variety of traditional electronic devices based on nanoscale materials that will enable them to be printed with ink jet printers or incorporated into layered composites.
Paras Prasad's Book On Nanophotonics
Last month also saw the release of the first book on Nanophotonics (John Wiley & Sons) -- the science behind light and matter interacting on the nanoscale – authored by Paras Prasad, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University at Buffalo and executive director of UB´s Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics, Nanophotonics.
Prasad says his objective is to interest young, as well as established, scientists about the potential that awaits them in nanophotonics research.
"We are living in an age of ´nano-mania,´" writes Prasad, "when everything nano is considered to be exciting and worthwhile." He points to the many government attempts worldwide to pour investments into nanotechnology research, as well as optimistic market projections.
Prasad, one of the earliest pioneers in photonics, is known for his work developing novel photonic materials with applications ranging from information storage to photodynamic cancer therapy and bioimaging, as well as the recent development of magnetic "nanoclinics," thin silica bubbles that can target cancer cells.
Meanwhile, the extent and pace at which Indian American scientists and engineers are involved in frontline nanotechnology research can be assessed from two important advances reported in April 2004.
Textile Fibers With Nanotechnology
Now that nanotechnology is at a defining point, its worth considering what Satish Kumar, a professor in Georgia Tech´s School of Polymer, Textile and Fiber Engineering has to say about a new class of textile fibers he is working on: "In 1900, nylon, polyester, polypropylene, Kevlar and other modern fibers did not exist, but life today seems to depend on them. The rate at which technology is changing is increasing, so much more dramatic changes can be expected in the next 100 years. Every major polymer fiber company in the world is now paying attention to the potential impact of carbon nanotubes."
Kumar expects composite fibers based on carbon nanotubes to offer improved mechanical & electrical properties and bring about the most significant changes to the textile industry since synthetic fibers were introduced in the 1930s.
Kumar is of the opinion that carbon nanotube reinforced composites could ultimately provide the foundation for a new class of strong and lightweight fibers with properties such as electrical and thermal conductivity unavailable in current textile fibers.
He's been working on such a project with researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Rice University, Carbon Nanotechnologies, Inc. and the U.S. Air Force to develop new processes for incorporating nanotubes into fibers and films. The results were presented March 28 at the 227th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, Calif.
"We are going to have dramatic developments in the textile materials field over the next 10 or 20 years because of nanotechnology, specifically carbon nanotubes," predicted Kumar. "Using carbon nanotubes, we could make textile fibers that would have thermal and electrical conductivity, but with the touch and feel of a typical textile. You could have a shirt in which the electrically-conducting fibers allow cell phone functionality to be built in without using metallic wires or optical fibers."
Thanks to the work of Kumar and researchers at the Air Force Research Laboratory, nanotubes have already found their way into fibers known as Zylon, the strongest polymeric fiber in the world. By incorporating 10 percent nanotubes, research has shown that the strength of this fiber can be increased by 50 percent.
Recently, Kumar´s research team has been collaborating with Richard Smalley, a Rice University professor who received a 1996 Nobel Prize for his work in developing nanotubes, which are of great interest because of their high strength, light weight, electrical conductivity and thermal resistance.
In addition to aircraft structures, Kumar sees nanotube composite fibers bringing electronic capabilities to garments, perhaps allowing cellular telephone or computing capabilities to be woven in using fibers that have the touch and feel of conventional textiles.
Enzyme-based Nanomanufacturing
Ashutosh Chilkoti of the Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems, at Duke University has a reputation as a speedy inventor. In about seven years at the University, he has obtained patents for five of his inventions, including one that targets cancer drugs to tumors using heat-sensitive polymers.
Last month, the Indian American biomedical engineer announced an important advance in nanomanufacturing by demonstrating that enzymes can be used to create nanoscale patterns on gold.
Enzymes are nature´s catalysts -- proteins that stimulate chemical reactions in the body and are used in a wide range of industrial processes, from wastewater treatment to cheese making to dissolving blood clots after heart attacks. Since many enzymes are already commercially available and well characterized, the potential for writing with enzyme 'ink' represents an important advance in nanomanufacturing.
In their experiments, the engineers used an enzyme called DNase I as an "ink" in a process called dip-pen nanolithography -- a technique for etching or writing at the nanoscale level. With the dip-pen they inscribed precise stripes of DNase I ink on a gold plate, which they had previously coated with a thick "forest" of short DNA strands. The stripes of the enzyme were 100 nanometers wide -- about one millionth the diameter of a human hair.
Once the researchers had created the stripes, they then activated the enzyme with a magnesium-containing solution. This changed the DNase I into a form that efficiently breaks down any DNA in its path. As a result, the team reports in the May 2004 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, available online as of March 27, 2004, the stripes of activated enzyme carved out "troughs" in the DNA coating that were 400 nm wide.
"We were surprised that the enzyme 'ink' worked so well, because it was simply deposited on the surface and could have washed away during the processing steps," said Chilkoti, who directed the project.
Chilkoti credits much of the experiment's success to the laboratory skills of Jinho Hyun, who was a post-doctoral fellow in his group, and who is now an assistant professor at Seoul National University. But this experiment was also an important proof of principle, said Chilkoti. Until now, few researchers have explored biological substances for nanoscale manufacturing, and even fewer have taken the approach of putting down chemically active biomolecules on a surface.
"A lot more work is needed to optimize the process, but we feel this enzyme-inking technique has tremendous promise for wide applicability," said Chilkoti.
Enzyme-based nanomanufacturing is of interest because it could be an incredibly versatile tool. "This is critical because nanomanufacturing is at the heart of efforts to see if we can make new devices that are far smaller, cheaper, faster and better than existing devices," said Chilkoti.
To date, dip-pen nanolithography has been primarily a bench-top laboratory technique. Scaling up the technique to truly make it a viable manufacturing technique will require new instrumental technology, such as dip-pen lithography machines with multiple, articulated tips that can move independently to deposit several different types of enzymes.
Chilkoti envisions machines that can work on a sheet of chips using different enzymes, so that the chips can be snapped apart after the enzyme inking and processing. Chilkoti notes that such machines are already being commercially developed, so the day might not be too far off when enzyme based nanomanufacturing might be possible on an industrial scale
Science researchers interested in profiling their work in this column are encouraged to submit their biodata and relevant publications to INDOlink at: email@example.com