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Although telltales are less effective on mainsails, they have been very successful at indicating turbulence on jibs. The most practical method to attach telltales is to thread a needle with some light wool of a highly visible color and pass it through the sail. Cut it off leaving about five inches to hang out on either side of the sail and tie two small overhand knots right next to the sailcloth so the wool won't pull through. By using a long piece of wool, pulling it right through to five inches from the end, and cutting it off five inches from the cloth, you can repeat the process at other points on the sail without having to rethread the needle. Another good practice is to place the wool higher on one side of the sail than on the other. In certain sunlight conditions it's hard to tell which piece of wool is which, unless they are at different levels. Some people place tape on either side of the sail in fear that the needle hole will weaken the material, but the edges of the tape tend to loosen and the wool hangs up on them and on its adhesive. Eventually the tape comes off anyway, so it's best not to use it in the first place.
The telltales should be placed in three positions along the luff of the jib about six to 12 inches from the leading edge depending on the size of the boat. Make sure that the wool cannot touch a seam or any sail stitching, because the hairs of the wool will catch on anything rough. The best telltales come from a type of wool that has as few tiny hairs as possible. Though Angora wool makes the best shroud telltales because of its mass-to-weight ratio (it's very light and fuzzy), it is definitely not the type to use next to a sailcloth on which the fuzz gets caught.
Telltales are very helpful for the beginner and yet can be used to advantage by the expert. The sailor who is learning to sail to windward by using these telltales may use a very simple rule (dubbed "Reinhorn's Law" in honor of Dr. Reinhornan Offshore Sailing School student of 1967). The rule reads: "Point the tiller at the fluttering piece of wool." If the leeward wool is fluttering, it's because the boat is being sailed too low, too far away from the wind for the desired close-hauled course, and should be pointed more toward the windputting the tiller to leeward cures this. If the windward piece of wool is fluttering the boat is being sailed too close to the wind on the verge of a luffputting the tiller to windward causes the boat to fall off and solves the problem.
One of the mistakes that many skippers make is trying to keep the telltales flowing on both sides all the time. There are many conditions when this shouldn't be done. For instance, in a strong wind and smooth sea you may be able to pinch (carry a very slight luff in the jib) and still maintain your speed or even go faster. The windward wool will flutter. If you fall off until both sides flow evenly, excessive heeling reduces the speed of the boat. So the experienced helmsman takes the wool on the jib with a grain of salt and steers what he feels to be the fastest course for the existing conditions.
There are two conditions when the jib telltales really come into their own. The first is reaching. While racing, the jib should be "played" constantly on a reach. This means crew members must ease it when it stalls and trim it when it luffs. They should have their eyes glued to the telltales near the luff of the sail and the jib sheet in hand whether sailing a small boat or a maxi yacht. Without the wool on the jib it is very, very difficult to determine if the sail is stalled.
The second, and even more important, use of the jib telltales is to determine the fore and aft placement of the jib "fair lead" or "lead." On almost all sailboats, the block on either side of the boat through which the jib sheets lead is adjustable so that it can travel toward the bow or stern and be locked in any spot along the track. It is this lead that determines the shape of the jib. If it is too far forward, the foot of the jib is too loose and the leech too tight because most of the pull on the jib sheet is downward. If it is too far aft, the foot is stretched tight and the leech too loose because of the backward pull. What we want is a compromise between the two extremes so that the sail is not distorted. There should be an even flow of air on both sides of the sail at all levels along the luff. In other words, the sail should have a constant angle of attack to the apparent wind. If the lead is too far forward, the bottom of the sail will have a big curve in it, lining up with the wind before the upper part does and luffing first. Conversely, if the lead is too far aft, the leech will be loose and tend to fall off up high, causing the sail to luff first at the top. (See Figure 3.) So the test to determine proper jib lead placement is to head the boat up slowly until the jib begins to luff. If it luffs at the top first, the lead is too far aft. If it luffs at the bottom first, it's too far forward. However, if it luffs the full length of the sail all at the same time, it's set in the right spot.
The wool telltales on the jib are more sensitive to angle change than the jib itself. In other words, you can see the windward one flutter before you can see the sail start to shake along the luff. If you have three sets of these telltales, as recommended before, you can see which flutters first and whether your jib leads are in the right place. The telltales also allow you to make the same lead judgment by watching for a stall. If the bottom leeward one flutters first, the bottom of the sail is stalled, meaning that the sail is too flat at the bottom because the jib lead is too far aft. With three sets of telltales your crew can more readily catch a change in the situation caused by an increase or decrease in wind velocity and change the jib leads fore or aft accordingly.
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text:
Its not you, its me..
I still love you. I'll always love you. I've loved you since we first met all those years ago. Our eyes met over that crowed (even then) newsfeed, and nothing was the same ever again!
You were pretty and quirky and no one understood you like I did. We clicked immediately and began the torrid affair that's lasted all this time. You were always there for me, whatever time of day or night, you entertained and educated me in equal measure. We went everywhere together, all over the world.
Through personal triumphs and local national and international news, elections, major sporting events or natural disasters, we've been enraptured with each other. We've been inseparable, we've celebrated and raged in equal measure. We grew together, but now I'm afraid we might be growing apart.
We'll still have all our friends – though you insist on calling them followers! The Americans, The Irish, the Swiss, the Indians, the Canadians – friends from all over the world that we met at parties or just hanging around. Friends that I've been lucky enough to meet in real life on occasion, and because you'd brought us together, those friends I'd felt I'd known for ever.
I love how you have kept trying so hard to keep me interested. You new look is great! I still love finding someone or something I could never have ever hoped to discover before you came into my life.
And I know I don't pay you enough attention. A quick flick through each morning has replaced the in depth conversations we used to have.
Instead of long nights burning the midnight oil together, lost in connections and talking and sharing, its now all I can do to make sure I'm not missing anything that appears in my '@' feed.
I don't take you out as much as I did. I used to love showing you off to my friends. Teaching them about how important you are to me, and how much you can offer them too. Nowadays, the familiarity has bred a sort of contempt. A sort of dismissive acknowledgment of how influential everyone (still) believes you are.
I still can't shake you off completely, but its as much habit as desire isn't it?
I had a number of the 'Twitterarti' RT my last post. I felt that familiar thrill! I'd connected once gain. we'd created something people loved, we'd sent the inter-webs spinning away and were reaching out to new and exciting people all over the world.
But something strange happened.
Its not very scientific, but I counted up all the followers of all the people that had shared that last post. The total came to around 140K. One hundred and forty thousand! Impressive – and I'm very grateful, as always.
But the impact on actual traffic to the blog was VERY little. Literally a few. Maybe 20 views.
A conversion ration of pretty much zero.
And I've noticed that in work, on our company websites, you don't have the influence you once did. All my new visitors come to me through someone else these days. There. I've said it.
Facebook does more for me than you do. Professionally and personally.
But its not just that. I'm also a bit worried about the people you introduce me too these days. Everyone is selling something it seems. No one wants to 'just' interact like before.
You used to connect me to people that wanted to talk to me! They'd be interested in who I was and what I had to say for myself. Just as I was interested in them.
No they are just as likely to want to 'sell' me followers. That makes me sad, its tawdry and cheap, and your better than that.
I don't want an automated DM, I want you to talk to me. I don't want to download your book, or like your Facebook page. I just want to be friends… Like we used to be.
I sorry, maybe I've grown up or moved on. Or maybe you've changed and I've stayed the same. But it isn't what it used to be. I don't suppose it was ever going to stay the same for ever.
And it does make me sad. And I'll keep trying.
But I think we might be over.


text:
This article differs from other broker's price reports because the data here is straight from the registers of the three state water authorities (South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria.) Surprisingly, this is the only calculation of prices involving all allocation trades recorded in the three registers.
Allocation water is the actual amount of water that can be extracted in that water year (the same as the financial year for the River Murray.) This can be traded to another water licence for use in that water year, hence some call it temporary water. Water licence holders are given a percentage of their licence's share component as allocation water, which starts low in July and increases as the year progresses. There were exceptions during the previous drought where allocations were reduced after they had been given out, but it's unlikely they will do that again.
The following chart is the Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) paid for allocation water in the River Murray from 1 July 2004 to 30 October 2015.
The dry years of 2006 to 2008 attracted high prices with a peak in October 2007 of $940 per ML ($830 per ML in 2007 dollars.) In that month, 27 988 ML was bought in NSW and Victoria, so this peak was not from a handful of trades. Similarly, in 2015 which is an El Niño year, we're seeing increasing prices. The price in October was $239 per ML, however it was higher towards the end. The last week of October price was $278 per ML.
These figures are from when the trade was approved, not when it was contracted, so they lag by about one week in a rising or falling market. Given the trades in November so far, the market as at 4 November 2015 is $290 per ML.
|Every time an application is submitted to the authorities, the price is included. Many trades are for $0, for example, between farms owned by the one business, and along with outliers, they are not included in these figures. Similarly, trades within private irrigation corporations are not included because that information is not available.
For allocation trades, most brokers have the buyer pay the application fee, so I've added in the application fee with each trade. Historical fees were found using the Wayback Machine. There would also be broker fees for the buyer, but that information is not available.
The registers publish all trades on the web. Here are the registers for South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.
South Australia's data goes back to 1 July 2009 and Victoria's to 1 July 2007, so price data before those dates is for the remaining states and the figures include all trade above and below Barmah choke.
Apart from price, the other interesting figure is volume. Since we only have full data from 2009, here is the volume chart from 1 July 2009 to 30 October 2015.
|What is VWAP?
Let's say there are two trades, one of 5 ML at $10 per ML and the other of 500 ML at $1 000 per ML. Taking the average of $10 and $1 000 isn't a valid way to calculate the market price because one trade is for a larger volume. VWAP takes this into account. In this case, it's the sum of price times volume for each month divided by the volume for each month.
What is the real price?
2004 was long enough ago that the prices need to be corrected for inflation (over this period inflation was 25 %.) I've used the CPI index to make this correction to each month's price.
Another trend that can be seen from the volume is that most trade occurs in the second half of the water year. Irrigators have better knowledge of their requirements later in the year, so it makes sense for most trade to occur then.
There is a hard limit on the maximum price of allocation water which depends on how good your lawyer is; the approximately $2 000 per ML fines for overuse.
We're heading for interesting times in the water market. The situation is not as dire as 2006 yet and the market is more mature.
06/11/15 new article on Goulburn and Murrumbidgee prices.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


text:
Protocol and mechanism for primary and mutter mode communication for asset tracking
A mode of communication for asset tracking units involves communication between a central station and the individual tracking units, usually through a satellite link. This mode is the primary communication link for tracking the assets. A second mode is the local area network (LAN) or "mutter" mode, in which a subset of tracking units communicate with each other in a mobile LAN. This mode is used as the secondary communication mechanism to conserve power, since mutter mode communication requires much less energy for local communication between the tracking units as opposed to direct satellite communication with the central station. In addition, mutter mode leads to increased reliability of the asset tracking system by enabling tracking of units which have batteries too weak to support communication with the central station, but strong enough to support communication in mutter mode. The mutter mode is also useful in finding tracking units which are not communicating with the central station due primary communication equipment fault or other inhibiting condition.
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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to asset tracking and, more particularly to the tracking of assets, including goods and vehicles, using the Global Positioning System (GPS). While goods are an example of assets that need to be tracked, the cargo containers, container trucks and railcars in which the goods are shipped are themselves assets which need to be tracked.
2. Background Description
Goods shipped from a manufacturing plant, warehouse or port of entry to a destination are normally tracked to assure their timely and safe delivery. Tracking has heretofore been accomplished in part by use of shipping documents and negotiable instruments, some of which travel with the goods and others of which are transmitted by post or courier to a receiving destination. This paper tracking provides a record which is completed only on the safe delivery and acceptance of the goods. However, there sometimes is a need to know the location of the goods while in transit. Knowledge of the location of goods can be used for inventory control, scheduling and monitoring.
Shippers have provided information on the location of goods by tracking their vehicles, knowing what goods are loaded on those vehicles. Goods are often loaded aboard shipping containers or container trucks, for example, which are in turn loaded aboard railcars. Various devices have been used to track such vehicles. In the case of railcars, passive radio frequency (RF) transponders mounted on the cars have been used to facilitate interrogation of each car as it passes a way station and supply the car's identification. This information is then transmitted by a radiated signal or land line to a central station which tracks the locations of cars. This technique, however, is deficient in that while a particular railcar remains on a siding for an extended period of time, it does not pass a way station. Moreover, way station installations are expensive, requiting a compromise that results in way stations being installed at varying distances, depending on the track layout. Thus the precision of location information varies from place to place on the railroad.
Recently, mobile tracking units have been used for tracking various types of vehicles, such as trains. Communication has been provided by means of cellular mobile telephone or RF radio link. Such mobile tracking units are generally installed aboard the locomotive which provides a ready source of power. However, in the case of shipping containers, container truck trailers and railcars, a similar source of power is not readily available. Mobile tracking units which might be attached to containers and vehicles must be power efficient in order to provide reliable and economical operation.
Most present-day asset tracking systems are land-based systems wherein a radio unit on the asset transmits information to wayside stations of a fixed network, such as the public land mobile radio network or a cellular network. These networks do not have ubiquitous coverage, and the asset tracking units are expensive. A satellite based truck tracking system developed by Qualcomm Inc., known as OMNITRACS, is in operation in the United States and Canada. This system requires a specialized directional antenna and considerable power for operation, while vehicle location, derived from two satellites, is obtained to an accuracy of about one-fourth kilometer. A rail vehicle positioning system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,129,605 to Burns et al. is installed on the locomotive of a train and uses, to provide input signals for generating a location report, a GPS receiver, a wheel tachometer, transponders, and manual inputs from the locomotive engineer.
The mobile tracking unit used in the present invention includes a navigation set, such as a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other suitable navigation set, responsive to navigation signals transmitted by a set of navigation stations which may be either space-based or earth-based. In each case, the navigation set is capable of providing data indicative of the vehicle location based on the navigation signals. In addition, the tracking unit may include a suitable electromagnetic emitter for transmitting to a remote location the vehicle's location data and other data acquired from sensing elements on board the vehicle.
The present invention obviates any need for a directional antenna and minimizes power requirements. Since both the navigation set and the emitter are devices which, when energized, require a large portion of the total electrical power consumed by the mobile tracking unit, it is desirable to control the respective rates at which such devices are activated so as to minimize power consumption by the mobile tracking unit.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method and protocol to locate and track multiple movable assets using a two-way satellite link.
Another object of the invention is to provide an asset tracking system which links proximate assets in a mobile local area network in a manner which conserves power and bandwidth.
In according with the invention, there are two modes of communication for the asset tracking units. The first of these modes is carried out between a central manager or station and the individual tracking units. This communication usually takes place through a satellite link. The second mode, carried out by the local area network, is referred to as the "mutter" mode, or mode in which a subset of tracking units communicate with each other in a mobile, dynamically-configured local area network (LAN).
The first of these modes is the primary communication link for tracking the assets. Mutter mode communication is used as a secondary communication mechanism to conserve power. The main requirements met by the mutter mode are the following:
1. Energy conservation. This is a key issue in asset tracking, since the individual tracking units have no external sources of energy. Mutter mode communication requires much less energy for local communication between the tracking units as opposed to direct satellite communication with the central station.
2. High reliability. Mutter mode leads to increased reliability of an asset tracking system by obtaining location information from asset tracking units which have batteries too weak to provide communication with the central station but which are capable of providing communication in mutter mode. Mutter mode also enables finding of tracking units which are not communicating with the central station due to a fault in their primary communication equipment or to some other inhibiting condition.
The invention specifies a protocol for mutter mode communication. The prime requirement of any protocol is that it be simple for implementation purposes and at the same time be robust under different failure modes. The protocol for the mutter mode as set forth herein makes use of the fact that a two-way communication channel exists between the tracking units and the central station. The central station includes a fairly powerful computer, allowing the processing power of that computer to be used in setting up and maintaining the mutter mode network. This enables the mutter mode protocol to be kept simple and reduces the complexity at individual tracking units whose numbers may be in the hundreds of thousands. Moreover, in conjunction with the protocol for the central station communication, the protocol for mutter mode communication is very similar. The frame structure developed for the central station communication protocol can be used for the mutter mode communication as well, further simplifying the implementation of mutter mode communication.
The features of the invention believed to be novel are set forth in the appended claims. The invention, however, together with further objects and advantages thereof, may best be understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing(s) in which:
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary asset tracking system which employs mobile tracking units in accordance with the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing in further detail a mobile tracking unit as used in the tracking system shown in FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating organization of the mobile local area network implemented by the present invention;
FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of the process employed at a master tracking unit, of adding a slave tracking unit to a mutter mode LAN;
FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of the process, employed at an autonomous tracking unit, by which that unit transitions to a slave mode; and
FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of the process, employed at a master unit, for polling a slave tracking unit.
FIG. 1 illustrates mobile tracking units which employ navigation signals from a GPS satellite constellation, although, as suggested above, other navigation systems can be used in lieu of GPS. A set of mobile tracking units 10A-10D are installed in respective cargo-carrying conveyances, such as vehicles 12A-12D, which are to be tracked or monitored. A communication link 14, such as a satellite communication link through a communication satellite 16, can be provided between each mobile tracking unit (hereinafter collectively designated as 10) and a remote central station 18 manned by one or more operators and having suitable display devices and the like for displaying location and status information for each vehicle equipped with a respective mobile tracking unit. Communication link 14 can be conveniently used for transmitting vehicle conditions or events measured with suitable sensing elements. Communication link 14 may be one-way (from mobile tracking units to remote central station) or two-way. In a two-way communication link, messages and commands can be sent to the tracking units, thereby further enhancing reliability of the communication. A constellation of GPS satellites, such as GPS satellites 20A and 20B, provides highly accurate navigation signals which can be used to determine vehicle location and velocity when the signals are acquired by a suitable GPS receiver.
Briefly, the GPS was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense and gradually placed into service throughout the 1980s. The GPS satellites constantly transmit radio signals in L-Band frequency using spread spectrum techniques. The transmitted radio signals carry pseudorandom sequences which allow users to determine location on the surface of the earth (within approximately 100 ft), velocity (within about 0.1 MPH), and precise time information. GPS is a particularly attractive navigation system to employ, being that the respective orbits of the GPS satellites are chosen so as to provide word-wide coverage and being that such highly-accurate radio signals are provided free of charge to users by the U.S. government.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a mobile tracking unit 10 which includes a navigation set 50 capable of generating data substantially corresponding to the vehicle location. Choice of navigation set depends on the particular navigation system used for supplying navigation signals to any given mobile tracking unit. Preferably, the navigation set is a GPS receiver such as a multichannel receiver; however, other receivers designed for acquiring signals from a corresponding navigation system may alternatively be employed. For example, depending on the vehicle location accuracy requirements, the navigation set may comprise a Loran-C receiver or other such less highly-accurate navigation receiver than a GPS receiver. Further, the navigation set may conveniently comprise a transceiver that inherently provides two-way communication with the central station and avoids the need for separately operating an additional component to implement such two-way communication. Briefly, such transceiver would allow for implementation of satellite range measurement techniques being that the vehicle location is determined at the central station simply through use of range measurements to the vehicle and the central station from two satellites whose position in space is known. The need for power by either such navigation set imposes a severe constraint for reliable and economical operation of the mobile tracking unit aboard vehicles which typically do not carry power supplies e.g., shipping containers, railcars used for carrying freight, truck trailers, etc. For example, typical GPS receivers currently available generally require as much as two watts of electrical power for operation. For the GPS receiver to provide a location fix, the GPS receiver must be energized for some minimum period of time in order to acquire sufficient signal information from a given set of GPS satellites so as to generate a navigation solution. A key advantage of the present invention is the ability to substantially reduce the energy consumed by the mobile tracking unit by selectively reducing the activation or usage rate for the navigation set and other components of the mobile tracking unit. In particular, if, while the vehicle is stationary, the activation rate for the navigation set is reduced, then the energy consumed by the mobile tracking unit can be substantially reduced, for example, by a factor of at least one hundred.
Mobile tracking unit 10 includes a suitable transceiver 52 functionally independent from navigation set 50. Transceiver 52 is optional depending on the particular design implementation for the tracking unit. Moreover, if the navigation set comprises a transceiver, then transceiver 52 would be redundant. Both communications transceiver 52 and navigation set 50 are actuated by a controller 58, which receives clock signals from a clock module 60. Transceiver 52 is capable of transmitting the vehicle location data by way of communication link 14 (FIG. 1) to the central station and receiving commands from the central station by way of the same link. If a GPS receiver is used, the transceiver and the GPS receiver can be conveniently integrated as a single unit for maximizing efficiency of installation and operation. An example of one such integrated unit is the Galaxy InmarsatC/GPS integrated unit which is available from Trimble Navigation, Sunnyvale, Calif., and is conveniently designed for data communication and position reporting between the central station and the mobile tracking unit. A single, low profile antenna 54 can be used for both GPS signal acquisition and satellite communication.
A low power, short distance radio link permits joining the nearby tracking units in a network to minimize power and maintain high reliability and functionality of such network. As shown in FIG. 2, in addition to a power source 62 (which comprises a battery pack that can be charged by an array of solar cells 66 through a charging circuit 64) a GPS receiver 50, a communications transceiver 52, and various system and vehicle sensors 68A-68D, each tracking unit includes a low power local transceiver 70 and a microprocessor 72. Microprocessor 72 is interfaced to all of the other elements of the tracking unit and has control over them. Transceiver 70 may be a commercially available spread spectrum transceiver such as those currently utilized in wireless local area networks. Spread spectrum transceiver 70 is equipped with its own low profile antenna 74.
Utilizing local transceiver 70, microprocessor 72 communicates with all other tracking units within communications range. When a train has multiple freight cars 82.sub.1, 82.sub.2, . . . , 82.sub.n equipped with tracking units of the type shown in FIG. 3, all of these units exchange information. The information exchanged allows the cars to recognize that they are all part of the same train. Because each microprocessor is interfaced to its own power sources, respectively, the status of available power for each tracking unit can also be exchanged. Once this information is available, the tracking unit with the most available power (i.e., most fully charged batteries) becomes the designated master, the other tracking units being slaves. The master tracking unit performs the GPS position and velocity reception and processing function, assembles these data along with the identification (ID's) of all other tracking units on the train, and transmits this information periodically in a single packet to a central station 84 via communication satellite 86.
To implement the protocol according to the invention, a two way communication link between the satellite and the asset tracking units is first established. This depends upon the access method, which is chosen to be a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) protocol. The TDMA protocol requires each tracking unit to transmit in an assigned time-slot during which no other unit transmits. A TDMA system requires tracking units to be time-synchronized to prevent communication collisions. This can be done using GPS absolute time as a reference, or it can be initiated by the central station using a broadcast control channel which is time-synchronized to the traffic channel used by the asset tracking units. The tracking units can synchronize to the broadcast control channel and hence derive synchronization to the traffic channel. The various tracking units are also assigned transmission frequencies and time slots by the central station.
When utilizing the TDMA profile, the tracking units transmit on the assigned frequency and respective time slots. The data sent comprises the tracking unit ID, its location (as derived from GPS or equivalent) and battery strength. The tracking unit can decode the GPS data and forward location information with its ID and battery strength. Alternatively, the tracking unit can avoid decoding the GPS data and forward the raw received data. In the latter case, the raw data together with the unit ID and battery strength are sent. This latter mode may be viewed as a store and forward mode. However, in order to maintain data integrity, a fairly high oversampling rate must be used which will increase the data rate at a cost of employing more power on the satellite link. Thus the trade-off is between the GPS processing power required at the tracking unit and the power required over the satellite traffic channel. The main advantage of the store and forward mode is that it requires less hardware in the asset tracking unit.
The central station receives the data from the different tracking units, and decodes and stores the information in a table. Each row of the table has at least four entries; namely, tracking unit ID, location, battery strength and signal quality. Signal quality here can be defined as received signal strength, bit error rate measured over a known sync word, or carrier-to-interference ratio. The table is sorted by location, and all asset tracking units within a predetermined proximity are grouped together. These asset tracking units form a "mutter" group. Next, a "best" tracking unit is chosen from each group, and the central station assigns that unit its new role. The best unit serves as the master tracking unit and collects data from each of the members of its group which have likewise been assigned their new role by the central station via the satellite link. The collected data are then transmitted by the master tracking unit via satellite link to the central station. This saves power as other tracking units in the group, especially ones with low battery power, do not have to transmit except at relatively long intervals.
The method by which the master tracking unit is chosen is as follows. From each of the groups in the table, the tracking units are sorted by battery strength and signal quality to determine the unit with not only the best battery strength but also the one with the best propagation path to the satellite. Use of the signal quality measure in selecting the best tracking unit helps overcome effects detrimental to signal quality, such as "shadowing", and provides inherent diversity. If shadowing is present, that is, if the tracking unit with the highest battery strength is under a canopy (e.g., foliage, ice or awning), then there is no point in choosing that tracking unit to forward the group's data as that unit will need to expend substantial power to overcome the attenuation of the canopy.
Because very little data must be transferred between a slave tracking unit and a master tracking unit, this communication link can be designed to be very low in power. Simple message repetition with differentially encoded modulation and differential detection can be used for the mutter mode.
The protocol for mutter mode according to the present invention is a simple polling scheme in which the master tracking unit sequentially polls the other tracking units in the group. The tracking units which do not communicate with the central station directly, but in fact report to the master tracking unit, are referred to as slave units. Since direct communication with the central station is the primary mode of communication, tracking units operate in the mutter mode only at the command of the central station, through a process known as the mutter mode handover process. The main steps of the handover protocol are as follows.
Each tracking unit must be enlisted with the central station. Through the central station communication protocol, the tracking unit registers itself. Hence, the central station has information as to the position of the tracking unit and the status of its various components, for instance, the health of its battery and its various sensor readings. As long as the tracking unit is in direct communication with the central station, it is continually being polled by the central station.
Based on the information at the central station, the central station might form a mutter mode network in a vicinity where there are multiple tracking units. Whether or not to form such network can be a function of battery levels at the tracking units.
In forming a mutter network in a vicinity, the central station selects one or more master tracking units which will be reporting for other tracking units in the vicinity. These master tracking units are selected because they have a strong battery and a good communication link with the central station. They also perform polling of the slave tracking units.
When the central station initiates a change in the status of a tracking unit to a slave unit through the central station communication channel, it commands the slave unit to receive a polling command from a particular master unit in the mutter mode channel. At the same time, it commands the master unit to poll the slave unit. If the polling is successful, the slave unit is assigned to that particular master unit. The success or failure of the mutter mode poll is relayed to the central station by the individual tracking units. If the polling is successful, the slave station is assigned to the master station in the mutter mode network and the central station no longer directly polls the slave unit. The slave unit now communicates with the master unit in the mutter mode. If the polling in the mutter mode is not successful, either the master or the slave or both of them provide this information to the central station. The central station then assigns another master station to the slave unit and the same procedure repeats. This happens until there is a successful poll in the mutter mode or until all the masters in a predetermined vicinity are exhausted.
Each master tracking unit, being responsible for a list of slave tracking units, sequentially polls the slave units of the list at fixed intervals. The frame structure for master-slave and slave-master communication is illustrated below: ##STR1## where SYNCH is the synchronization preamble to establish carrier synchronization and symbol boundaries, DEST ADDR is the destination address of the tracking unit to which the packet is destined and may be a broadcast address in case the packet is addressed to all tracking units, SOURCE ADDR is the address of the source unit, C is a control field designating the message type, DATA is the main information in the message, and FEC is a forward error correction for errors formed over DEST ADDR field through DATA field. Bit stuffing or bit escaping is used to avoid inadvertent flag creation. The number (or designation) above each segment of the packet indicates the number of bits that make up the respective segment.
FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of the process at an autonomous or master tracking unit for adding a slave tracking unit to either an existing LAN or to form a LAN. The mode is initially set at step 401 to either master or autonomous, depending on whether a LAN exists or is to be formed. The autonomous or master unit remains in low power or "sleep" operation until occurrence of its TDMA assigned slot at step 402. At this time, the unit "wakes up" and transmits a packet to the satellite at step 403. A test is then made at step 404 to determine if a command has been received by the autonomous or master unit to poll a slave unit. If not, the process loops back to step 402 to await the next TDMA assigned slot. However, if a command to poll a slave unit has been received, the autonomous or master unit polls the slave tracking unit at a specified time at step 405. A test is then made at decision step 406 to determine if the poll was successful. If not, the failure is stored at step 407 before the process loops back to step 402. If the poll is successful, the slave is added to the master's slave list at step 408. A test is next made at decision step 409 to determine if the number of slave units is greater than or equal to one. If not, the process loops back to step 402; otherwise, the mode of the unit is set to master before the process loops back to step 402. Thus, if the original mode was autonomous, the addition of a slave unit to the slave list results in the mode of the unit being changed to master.
FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating the process at an autonomous tracking unit by which it transitions to a slave mode. Initially, the mode of the unit is autonomous at step 501. The unit remains in low power or "sleep" operation until occurrence of its TDMA assigned slot at step 502. At this time, the unit "wakes up" and transmits a packet to the satellite at step 503. A test is then made at decision block 504 to determine if a command has been received to listen for a poll. If not, the process loops back to step 502 to await the next TDMA assigned slot. However, if a command to listen for a poll has been received, the unit wakes up at the specified time and awaits a poll at step 505. A test is then made at decision step 506 to determine if a poll was received at the specified time. If not, the failure is stored at step 507 before the process loops back to step 502. If the poll is received, the master information and time interval to the next poll is stored at step 508, and the mode of the unit is set to slave at step 509 before the process loops back to step 502.
In the case of master-slave communication, the destination address is the address of the slave tracking unit, whereas in the case of slave-master communication, it is the address of the master tracking unit. A predefined central station address can be used by the master unit to multi-cast messages to multiple slave units as in the case of time and data information update. A control field designates the message type. The various message types can include polling for slave status information, specifying to a slave unit a new master unit, acknowledgment of apparent error-free message reception, request for retransmission, and the like. For master-to-slave communication, the data can contain the time at which the slave unit should transmit its information and the time of the next polling epoch for that slave unit. In the case of slave-to-master communication, the data field will contain status information from the slave unit.
FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating the process at a master tracking unit for polling one slave tracking unit. For each slave unit, the master unit goes through a similar logic. The mode is set to master at step 601. The master unit "sleeps" until the slave unit polling time at step 602. At that time, the master unit "wakes up" and transmits a poll to the slave unit at step 603. A test is then made at decision step 604 to determine whether a reply was received from the slave unit. If so, the slave unit information received is saved at step 605, the failure count for that slave unit is set to zero at step 606, and the process loops back to step 602. If, however, a reply is not received, the failure count for that slave unit is incremented at step 607. A test is made at decision step 608 to determine if the failure count for that slave unit is equal to six. If not, the process loops back to step 602; otherwise, the slave unit is removed from the master's slave list at step 609. Next, a test is made at decision step 610 to determine if the number of slave units on the master's slave list is equal to or greater than one. If so, the process loops back to step 602. If not, the mode for the unit is set to autonomous at step 611, and the process exits.
The slave tracking unit resets a timer every time a successful poll occurs. It then goes into its sleep mode to conserve its battery and "wakes up" to receive the next poll from the master tracking unit. The time interval to the next poll is explicitly provided by the master tracking unit to the slave tracking unit in every poll instance. If, however, the slave tracking unit does not receive the poll and the timer reaches the end of its present time interval, the slave tracking unit can turn on its central station communication receiver. Since the central station is in communication with the master tracking unit and does not receive the message from the master tracking unit about a particular slave tracking unit, it will attempt to poll the slave tracking unit directly. Once the slave tracking unit receives the message from the central station, it resorts to the central station communication until the central station joins another mutter mode network.
The mutter mode protocol is totally free of collisions between messages. This is due to the polling mechanism used for exchange of information. In the event multiple master tracking units exist in the same vicinity, the central station can assign different frequency bands for different mutter mode networks so as to avoid inter-mutter mode network conflicts. This ensures that no inter-mutter mode network message collisions occur as long as newer mutter mode networks do not enter the same vicinity as, for instance, when a new train moves in. If this occurs, the responsibility of reconfiguring the network lies with the central station.
If the signal quality and/or battery strength of the master tracking unit drops below an acceptable threshold, the central station resorts the table and reassigns a new master tracking unit. The master tracking unit will receive data from several tracking units within a predetermined time-window or time slot. If a tracking unit is unable to transmit to the master tracking unit because it has no line of sight to the master, then that time slot will be filled with "noise". When no recognizable data and tracking unit ID are decoded at the central station, the following action is initiated by the central station. First, the central station searches for the missing IDs from the list in the table for that group. It then broadcasts a message to those units whose IDs are missing to transmit to another master tracking unit, which may be visible, or to transmit directly to the satellite. If still no message is received, the noncommunicating tracking unit is presumed to be either damaged or completely hidden. The last location of the noncommunicating unit is recorded and forwarded with a history of locations and time stamps to alert the concerned organization.
If the master tracking unit does not receive a response from the slave tracking unit, it can query the slave tracking unit up to a maximum number of times at predetermined time intervals, as might be necessary with a fading channel. Should these polls fail, the master tracking unit will remove the slave tracking unit from its polling table and communicate the loss of the slave tracking unit to the central station. The central station will then try to communicate directly with the slave tracking unit through the central station communication channel.
A tracking unit that is lost and has low power is called an "orphan". The system can be configured to attempt to locate orphans or it can treat it as a lost unit and use the above reporting procedure. If the system attempts to locate the orphan, it will use the last location of the orphan to alert nearby mutter mode tracking units to transmit a "lost" message. The tracking units are designed to enter a "sleep" mode if their battery strength is very low. In the "sleep" mode, they will periodically be activated to receive a "lost" message and reply briefly if such message is received. If the orphan receives the "lost" message, it will respond and can thus be located by another tracking unit which will relay this information to the central station via the usual protocol.
When a cargo conveyance goes into a repair facility for servicing, which may require as much as several weeks out of service, manual intervention may be required or the tracking unit affixed to the conveyance can be treated as an orphan. Manual intervention implies informing the central station via a computer connection. In either case, the central station will use a deactivation flag for that tracking unit in its sort table and will reactivate the unit after the servicing or when the central station receives location and ID information from the tracking unit.
Use of centralized control at the central station with respect to multiple access methods allows the channel resources (i.e., time slots, frequencies, codes) to be monitored and hence allows optimum assignments. This maximizes system capacity via reuse of channel resources at geographically separate locations. For CDMA on the reverse link (i.e., tracking units transmitting to satellite), power control is required to compensate for loss due to being off bore-sight in the antenna gain pattern. With location information of each asset, the central station can allow each tracking unit to adjust its power to compensate for the attenuation due to the antenna beam roll-off. It is most advantageous in terms of capacity and equipment complexity to use TDMA on the forward link (i.e., satellite to tracking unit). An advantage of using TDMA on the reverse link is that it provides a variable bandwidth capability in the mutter mode. In this mode, as more units join a mutter group, the master tracking unit has to send more data. An additional data requirement can be dynamically met by assigning more than one time slot to the master tracking unit. This use of multiple TDMA time slots can also be exploited to obtain a diversity advantage. This is done by repeating transmissions in multiple time slots and using a majority logic vote at the receiver. This provides large power savings at the transmitter.
Among the advantages of the invention over prior art systems, therefore, are:
1. The satellite system provides ubiquitous coverage and better coverage than a land mobile radio system.
2. Mutter mode allows one transmitter out of the group to transmit at any given time and thereby conserves power, effectively averaging power over the whole group over a period of time.
3. By allowing the central station to have centralized control, all the network and signal processing complexity is transferred from the tracking units to the central station where there are no power limitations.
4. The central station has a table of all users in the system, together with their locations, permitting it to dynamically assign channels to tracking units as requited, thereby maximizing capacity and reducing message collisions to improve throughput and delay characteristics.
5. Since all network management is in the central station, the system can be easily evolved to support larger number of users without changing the protocol to the individual tracking units or reprogramming them.
6. The signal quality sorting method provides a diversity advantage in shadowed channels which are often encountered in satellite links, which translates to a power saving on the tracking units.
7. The processing power of the central station allows all GPS processing to be done at the central station instead of the tracking unit, resulting in a hardware reduction in the tracking unit.
8. Tracking units that are damaged or lost can be traced easily from the record kept at the central station.
9. The use of multiple TDMA accommodates variable rates, which is necessary for a mutter group growing in size.
10. Multiple TDMA slots can be used to repeat data to obtain a power gain via majority logic decoding at the receiver.
11. The centralized control supports system authentication, verification, encryption and wide area roaming.
While only certain preferred features of the invention have been illustrated and described herein, many modifications and changes will occur to those skilled in the art. It is, therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spirit of the invention.
1. A method of tracking assets comprising the steps of:
- affixing a battery powered tracking unit to each asset to be tracked;
- communicating with each tracking unit from a central station to receive from each tracking unit identification (ID), location, battery strength, and signal quality;
- storing and maintaining a table at the central station, said table including the ID, location, battery strength, and signal quality of each tracking unit;
- sorting at the central station tracking units in the table by location to identify tracking units within groups proximate to one another;
- sorting at the central station tracking units within each group to identify a tracking unit within said each group which has acceptable battery strength and signal quality; and
- establishing a mobile local area network of tracked assets among a plurality of tracking units within said each group, each of said tracking units constituting a node of the mobile local area network, with a tracking unit within the group having acceptable battery strength and signal quality acting as a master unit and other tracking units in the group acting as slave units.
2. The method of tracking assets recited in claim 1 wherein the step of communicating with each tracking unit comprises the steps of:
- assigning a time slot for transmission by a tracking unit to the central station;
- transmitting a packet of information from a tracking unit to the central station, said packet of information including tracking unit ID, location, battery strength, and signal quality; and
- transmitting commands to the tracking unit from the central station.
3. The method of tracking assets recited in claim 2 wherein said each tracking unit can assume an autonomous, master or slave mode, said each tracking unit initially being set in the autonomous mode, and wherein the step of establishing a mobile local area network comprises the steps of:
- transmitting a command to a first tracking unit to poll a second tracking unit at a specified time;
- polling the second tracking unit from the first tracking unit at the specified time;
- communicating to the first tracking unit a response from the second tracking unit;
- adding the second tracking unit to a slave list stored by the first tracking unit; and
- setting the first tracking unit to a master mode.
4. The method of tracking assets recited in claim 2 wherein said each tracking unit can assume an autonomous, master or slave mode, said each tracking unit initially being set in the autonomous mode, and wherein the step of establishing a mobile local area network comprises the steps of:
- transmitting a command to the first tracking unit to await a poll;
- storing at the first tracking unit information received in the poll identifying the master tracking unit of the local area network; and
- setting the first tracking unit to a slave mode.
5. The method of tracking assets recited in claim 3 wherein said each tracking unit can assume an autonomous, master or slave mode, said each tracking unit initially being set in the autonomous mode, and wherein the step of establishing a mobile local area network comprises the steps of:
- periodically transmitting polls by the master tracking unit at specified times to tracking units on the slave list stored by the master tracking unit;
- determining whether a response has been received from each tracking unit polled by the master tracking unit;
- counting by the master tracking unit a number of consecutive failures to receive a response from polls for each tracking unit on the slave list; and
- removing from the master tracking unit's slave list any tracking unit having a number of failures exceeding a predetermined value.
6. The method of tracking assets recited in claim 5 further comprising the steps of:
- checking the slave list of the master tracking unit to determine if the slave list is empty; and
- setting the mode of the master tracking unit to autonomous when the slave list is determined to be empty.
Referenced Cited
U.S. Patent Documents
|March 17, 1987
|Gray et al.
|November 28, 1989
|Marinelli et al.
|September 1, 1992
|May 11, 1993
|May 18, 1993
|June 29, 1993
|Mansell et al.
|July 6, 1993
|Brown et al.
|February 22, 1994
|Novakovich et al.
|January 3, 1995
|Brown et al.
|August 29, 1995
Patent History
Type: Grant
Filed: Jun 7, 1995
Date of Patent: Dec 24, 1996
Assignee: General Electric Company (Schenectady, NY)
Inventors: Irfan Ali (Niskayuna, NY), John E. Hershey (Ballston Lake, NY), Stephen M. Hladik (Albany, NY), Amer A. Hassan (Cary, NC), Sandeep Channakeshu (Cary, NC), Ravinder D. Koilpillai (Cary, NC), Kenneth B. Welles, II (Scotia, NY), Harold W. Tomlinson (Scotia, NY)
Primary Examiner: Douglas W. Olms
Assistant Examiner: Min Jung
Attorney: Marvin Snyder
Application Number: 8/487,272
International Classification: H04Q 700;


text:
Amber Donovan contributed this questioning technique.
"I learned this technique in another course and tried it out the last time I taught and it worked so well, I was shocked and excited at the results:
I gave each student 3 "poker chips" (you can really use anything) and challenge them, tell them that for each question they answer they need to hand in a chip – your goal is to hand in all of your chips by lunch time (or the end of the lesson, which ever) and once you are out of chips you are no longer allowed to participate until all the others have answered or given their opinions.
I found this really opened up the quiet, introverted students that may have been too shy OR they take a bit longer to think about the answer – I often saw the extroverts taking over the conversation to the point that the introverted students were not able to speak their minds.
It was great to hear the ideas and answers from those that weren't participating as often as others and it actually opened them up in the following lessons and participation did go up."
from PIDP 3250 Forum Discussion


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Wichita school board member Jeff Davis resigns
Wichita school board member Jeff Davis resigned from the board Monday, saying he recently moved out of the district.
Davis, who was first elected to the board in 2007, represented District 4, which includes portions of south and southwest Wichita.
Remaining board members plan to appoint a replacement for Davis in coming weeks. The new board member must live in District 4 and cannot be a district employee, according to district officials.
"My wife and I have moved, bought a new home (that's) still in the city, but living in another school district," Davis said. He said he notified state officials Friday that he had moved into the Maize school district.
Davis, a retired police sergeant, has about two years remaining in his third term.
In 2015, he said he filed for re-election only because he didn't think anyone else would run for the seat. Davis' name remained on the ballot because he missed the deadline to have it removed, but he didn't campaign for re-election, and at every opportunity, he endorsed his opponent.
He won the election anyway.
On Monday, during a portion of the school board's regular meeting reserved for new business, Davis announced that he would resign "effective immediately." Board members directed the clerk of the board to post a notice of the vacancy.
People interested in serving on the board should submit their applications to the clerk by Sept. 28, board members decided Monday. The board will hold special meetings on Sept. 29 and Oct. 2 to interview potential candidates.
Davis said he was proud of his time on the board, particularly the passage of the 2008 bond issue, which put storm shelters in every school, as well as the appointment of former superintendent John Allison and current superintendent Alicia Thompson.
"It's been a wonderful ride, with the exception of having to cut, over the past eight years, $98 million" from the district's budget, Davis said.
Davis served on the board of directors on the Council of Great City Schools. "And I'll tell you that this district does very, very well," he said. "We've got problems, like they all do, but we're top notch."
Suzanne Perez Tobias: 316-268-6567, @suzannetobias


text:
Mario Painting
Vancouver Painters
Vancouver, B.C.
Ph: 604-720-0646
Interior & Exterior Professionals
20 Years of Painting Experience
Is the paint on your walls – ceilings looking a bit dull?
Not as vibrant as you like it to be?
Let us help you, with our professional Vancouver painters and services to liven up those areas with a new fresh vibrate look to last for years to come.
We specialize in all areas of painting including waterproofing, pressure cleaning of every size of interior and exterior house, office, warehouse, building, retail stores, condominium, hotels etc.
Perhaps you are in the process or planning to renovate an area in your home or business. Let us help you choose the right color along with the proper sheen and once put into place will leave you in complete comfort!
We are fully licensed and WCB (Worksafe) insured painting company.
We offer professional expertise with competitive pricing and customer satisfaction!
Our Vancouver house painters strive in providing professional and dependable painting services to clients in the Lower Mainland – Vancouver, West Vancouver North Vancouver and Burnaby.
Perhaps the exterior paint of your home / business is peeling, has discolored – let us re-paint all those areas to give it a new fresh look. Perhaps the wood needs to be re-stained to keep the material from deteriorating and rotting away.
We offer complete estimates and stay within our agreed price.
We welcome competitive bids and we will assist you to meet your needs and budget.
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text:
Navy M3/M4 Enigma Machine Emulator
Note: this Enigma emulator is now over ten years old and is no longer being regularly maintained. While it still largly works, your milage may vary on newer browsers and I have no idea what it's like on smart-tech, particularly touch-screen (tablets/mobiles/anything else that isn't a PC). Also note: if you are curious about the code it can be viewed here.
If you'd like to send messages to your friends, you all need to be using the same settings. You can generate a "daily key" (settings for each day) for a particular month using the Daily Key Generator.


text:
Tag Archives: Edward Elgar
Elgars Variations on The Matrix
This is a mash up I created last year combining the full 2nd movement (C.A.E.) of Elgar's Enigma Variations and Rob D's Clubbed to Death. I put some images to it and uploaded it to youtube earlier this year:
Posted in Creating Tagged Clubbed to Death, Edward Elgar, Enigma Variations, Rob D, The Matrix Leave a comment


text:
Story highlights
- Video of Zimbabwe man removing python from car goes viral
- It was second time that day man had tangled with the snake
(CNN)There's car trouble, and then there's this.
A family in Zimbabwe discovered the root of their engine problems last week went beyond spark plugs and fuel injectors.
The Mosterts -- living in Karoi, just north of Harare -- were shocked to find a massive African rock python huddled under the hood of their vehicle.
The video of Ben Mostert removing the snake went viral. In the video Mostert calmly grabs the python around its neck so it couldn't bite him, while his 5-year-old son Patrick shouts in the background, "It's a rattlesnake! it's a rattlesnake! It's a massive snake!"
Mostert and another man move the python into the bush next to the road and quickly run away.
Unwanted guest
Funny thing is, this wasn't Mostert's first encounter with the snake.
"That was the second time the python was caught that day," he said.
He says the python was somewhat of a permanent fixture around his family's house. When they first moved in, the previous tenants warned them of a giant snake which caused multiple lambs to go missing.
Since the Mosterts have lived in the home, their cat has disappeared.
So when Ben Mostert found the python last Wednesday in the family's chicken house, he captured it and stuffed the snake into a grain bag to transport it. He took it to a river about four miles from the house, where he thought the python would best enjoy its surroundings, far from any human habitation.
Only thing was, when Mostert released the snake into the wild, it slithered straight back to his car.
Protected pest
It climbed on the front wheel and up the radiator.
Mostert didn't know what to do so he drove around slowly, hoping the snake would uncoil itself and drop to the road.
That never happened.
Finally, Mostert decided to stop and see where the snake was inside his car. That's when he found it coiled around the engine.
Mostert, a farmer, has caught many pythons before, and he's sure the snake inside his car won't be his last. He says pythons are a problem. They also are protected royal game in Zimbabwe, he said.
He hopes at least this time, the python won't find its way back to his car or home.


text:
CTI has confirmed four honorary Cisco partner statuses including GOLD Certified Partner and has obtained recertification in five cloud services
CTI announces to have passed recertification and to have confirmed four honorary Cisco partner statuses
- Cisco GOLD Certified Partner in RUSSIA status implies a high level of project management methodology, streamlined procedures for quality management of service maintenance in the projects of any complexity and high level of solutions development on the basis of Cisco products. CTI remains Cisco Gold Partner for 11 years.
- Cisco Cloud and Managed Services Master Partner Worldwide status confirms competence of CTI experts in the sphere of managed services covering the life cycle of a solution including planning, design, implementation, support, maintenance and optimization of IT services. CTI is the only company in Russia which has been awarded with this status.
- Master Collaboration Specialization status proves the highest competence level and exclusive expertise in unified communications and is awarded only to elite partners. CTI is Cisco only partner in Russia to have obtained this status as far back as in 2010 and ever since.
- Master Security Specialization guarantees the highest level of specialization in IS sphere. This status proves the partner's practical experience in the sphere of integrated solutions for network security.
Furthermore, CTI is recertified in five services:
Cisco Powered Cloud Services
- Infrastructure as a Service. A customer gets guaranteed resources – processor time and capacities, core memory, space for fail-safe data storage system, IP addresses pool within which a customer can create virtual machines of any capacity in any quantity.
- UC as a Service Based on HCS. Efficient method to use applications capacities for team work at an enterprise (such as telephony, video communication, conferences, internal chat, etc.)
- Video and TelePresence as a Service. Video Conferences on demand. Virtual conference rooms for video conference with life presence effect.
Cisco Powered Managed Services
- Business Communication. Combining various communication media (audio and video calls, conferences, messaging) into a unified, manageable and extensible system accessible from anywhere in the world.
- Unified Contact Center. The purpose of this service is high level servicing and processing of calls and arrangement of outgoing campaigns. Work force optimization (WFO/WFM) and interactive voice response are included in this service.
CTI has demonstrated excellent results and has proved its compliance with the highest status inherent to the leaders of IT market in general as well as information security and provision and management of cloud services. Therefore Cisco has resolved to credit recertification without passing on-site audit this year.
"CTI has once again demonstrated excellent results and proved its compliance with Cisco requirements including the highest status of Gold Certified Partner and the unique specialization in Master Collaboration, says Denis Volianskiy, CTI General Director. – Impressive number of implemented joint projects, unique technological expertise, high level of process and projects management and long history of successful collaboration have played an important role in the company's smooth passing recertification in record time"
"We highly value CTI's consistent adherence to our technologies, - says Alexey Perevyazkin, the Territory Business Manager of Cisco. – For many consecutive years the company has been showing high class results at all stages of Cisco solutions promotion. We are hopeful, that our mutual achievements and success will only increase in the future".


text:
L: Is today Christmas?
Me: No, Christmas is in 10 days. Not too far now!
L: Fuck it. Santa takes too long; can you buy me presents?
L is home from school due to strep throat (his first infection!). His mood is generally sour and I guess he has just lost patience with Saint Nick. After (failing at) suppressing laughter, we had a discussion about words for kids and words for grownups. L's main concern/question: Can I still say darn when we are at home?


text:
Brandon Zech and Rainey Knudson on a certain show you can't miss, an unpredictable biennial, and three blockbuster dead guys.
Anna Gaskell
The show avoids a decisive position on the role of narrative by offering a selection of works with the potential to tell a story—or to tell a potential story. That potential is elusive.
Rainey Knudson and Christina Rees experience corpsing and art at an Austin Airbnb, and look forward to a promising art walk in West Dallas.


text:
Nation & World
Alaska Rep. Young wants regulations rolled back to 1991 levels
Alaska Rep. Don Young suggested Tuesday he plans to introduce a bill to repeal every regulation that's been put into effect in the last 20 years, an idea that could have huge implications for everything from aviation safety to oil drilling if it actually happened.
"My bill is very simple, I just null and void any regulations passed in the last 20 years," Young told the Anchorage Downtown Rotary Club. "I picked 20 years ago because it crossed party lines and also we were prosperous at that time. And no new regulations until they can justify them."
At least some members of the Rotary crowd appeared taken aback by the breadth of what Young appeared to be saying, given all of the passenger jet safety, pesticide, food safety, banking and other regulations that have come into place since 1991.
One man at the luncheon stood and asked Young whether the congressman felt there should be any regulation of Wall Street.
Young responded he was not an expert on financial regulation but does believe there's a role for it, so long as the government doesn't go too far.
"When we deregulated the financial institutions which we did I believe probably 10 years ago we created some problems. There's no doubt about that. I'm more interested in regulations that do not have any founding," Young said, talking about paperwork required to meet transportation security regulations for barge commerce on the Yukon River.
Young spokesman Luke Miller, asked after the luncheon for clarification whether his boss does intend to file a bill seeking to roll back all federal regulations to pre-1991 levels, said the congressman was referring to legislation currently being developed. Miller described the overall theory as attempting to counter the "regulatory overreach" of the executive branch. He asserted there are thousands of rules not intended by Congress with a compliance cost Young considers enormous.
"While there are certainly regulations that are essential for public health and safety; the amount of regulations coming from the federal government and the extent to how they affect everyday life in America is outrageous," Young's spokesman said in an emailed statement. "The idea behind the legislation is simple; if an agency cannot justify the benefit of a regulation, then it has no business being on the books. The intent of this legislation is to reverse the regulatory overreach by the federal government, not to repeal regulations that are critical to the safety of Alaskans."
It's not clear what kind of process Young's bill would require of an agency to justify each regulation over the past 20 years, though the government is already required to follow administrative procedures to create regulations.
"The legislation is not finalized and is still being developed. After the legislation is finalized and introduced, I will be more than happy to get you specifics," said Young spokesman Miller when asked about that.
The proposed legislation appears to be more statement than anything else. Young himself said at the Anchorage Rotary luncheon he knew the chances of getting such a measure through the full Congress were not good, and that the president would veto it.
Among those in the audience for Young's address was Deborah Williams, a Rotarian who is former director of the Alaska Democratic Party and who also was special assistant for Alaska to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior during the Clinton administration.
Williams said after the luncheon that rolling back the regulations to pre-1991 levels would mean repealing rules that require blow-out preventers on deep sea oil wells as well as reversing subsistence hunting and fishing regulations, among many other things.
Williams said regulations are in place to implement the laws that are passed by Congress and that Congress can deal with individual regulations it believes don't reflect the intent of the laws. "Regulations are necessary to implement Congressional legislation," she said. "It would neither be wise or feasible to repeal all regulations in the last 20 years."
Young told the Rotary that people in the U.S. are getting too comfortable, with the nation not producing enough and regulation out of hand.
"We've got to make the public less comfortable and more interested in the benefits that they should be providing because of economic well being for future generations," Young said.
Young, a 78-year-old Republican, has been Alaska's only representative in the U.S. House since 1973. Despite what one Rotary member termed his "radical" idea to eliminate 20 years of government regulation, he started his speech by talking about the need for Congress to become more moderate and less politically partisan.
"You have two extremes to the right and the left trying to run this country and the middle is not being heard. We have to get back to the middle," said Young, who said that the result is inaction by Congress and power being shifted to the executive branch.
"My side of the aisle wants to cut our way into prosperity," he said. "We cannot do that. You can control spending but you cannot cut your way into prosperity. You have to add new dollars to the structure and economic base of this nation."
Young noted there are 85 freshman Republicans in the House. "I'm working with them, trying to bring them to the middle because they're really to the far right, and explain to them that until we work together to solve these problems the president has the power," he said.
To read more, visit www.adn.com.


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Hannah Stein
Hannah Stein wrote "The ultimate need is the need for a meaning of existence. We can only be understood, and thus respected by others, if we are clear as to the purpose of our own existence" [quoted in Six Citizens in Search of a Cause by John R. Coleman (1974)]. She found her own purpose, and renown, as an advocate for the economically disadvantaged in the United States and Israel. During her fourteen-year tenure as the executive director of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), Stein worked to establish job-training programs for poor women as well as day care for their children.
Born in Berlin, Germany, on May 30, 1920, Stein was nearing adolescence when Hitler began his rise to power. Her father, an attorney, had both the means and the foresight to send her to London to study in 1933. She stayed there until the end of World War II, earning a degree in journalism at St. Andrews College. During this time, she aligned herself with the Zionist movement and was elected president of the Zionist Youth of Great Britain in 1943. Immediately after the war, she worked as a journalist, reporting on war refugees in western Europe and Palestine. Soon after the war, her parents separated. Her father sought refuge in Palestine, while Stein accompanied her mother to the United States. There, she worked as a fundraiser for the Zionist Organization of America from 1946 to 1958. She then began her professional association with the NCJW.
Working in cooperation with other advocacy organizations, including the National Council of Negro Women and the United Church Women, Stein helped to establish the Women in Community Service (WICS) coalition, mobilizing volunteer-service programs in aid of disadvantaged women. In her role as executive director, she instituted the NCJW's first public fundraising campaign, soliciting donations for both the WICS and an NCJW educational research center in Jerusalem. She was also involved in NCJW investigations of American day-care and juvenile-justice facilities.
Hannah Stein died of cancer on September 11, 1973, in New York City. The impact of her life's work survives her. Friends and comrades remember her as a "creative, dynamic, women's libber." As a self-proclaimed feminist and a Jewish professional who looked beyond her own people, Stein's influence was felt by Jewish and non-Jewish individuals in needy communities throughout the western world.
Coleman, John R. Six Citizens in Search of a Cause: Hannah Stein Memorial Lecture (1974).
Groiziani, Bernice. Where There's A Woman: Seventy-Five Years of History as Lived by the National Council of Jewish Women (1967).
Obituary. NYTimes, September 13, 1973, 52:3.
Powers, Helen. Interview by author, 1995.
How to cite this page
Berger, Jessica. "Hannah Stein." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 27 February 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on May 26, 2019) <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/stein-hannah>.


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I am looking for a tent that I can take tramping for my two kids and I to sleep in on an overnight tramp. this is something i want to do more and more as the kids get older. They are 6 and 4. I went on a hour tramp (2 hour with my daughter) last year and it was great. My son wants to join us this year. When I go tramping I will be going with a mate, and between us we will be taking 2 tents, all the food etc. The kids might take their pillow/clothes but that will be it.
I have narrowed it down to two options:
http://www.equipoutdoors.co.nz/contents ... bus_3.html
http://www.equipoutdoors.co.nz/contents ... ligan.html
The nimbus 3 is going for $150, the hooligan for $175. The hooligan will be more spacious and has a better vestibule with groundsheet. If my wife decides to join us at some stage we can all sleep in the hooligan. The only issue is the hooligan is 2kg heaver than the nimbus 3 (7kg as opposed to 5kg).
Now what I am wondering, from experts out in vorbland, is will that 2kg kill me on a 2hr tramp considering I have my two kids gear? Is the extra 2kg that much, it doesn't sound it, but i could be heaps after 2 hours of walking/stopping. i am relatively fit if that matters. if i go for the hooligan will i curse that 2kg?
any advice greatly appreciated!


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text: (VOVworld)- The President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan has highlighted Buddhism's great contributions to the strengthening of national unity. At a New Year meeting with Most Venerable Thich Pho Tue, Head of the Viet Nam Buddhist Sangha's Patronage Council and other Buddhist dignitaries, Nhan said he hoped that Buddhist dignitaries and followers always actively contribute to national development. He said the Vietnam Fatherland Front is willing to assist the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha to organize Vesak 2014, a celebration of Buddha's birthday in Viet Nam. The Most Venerable Thich Pho Tue said the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha would always respond to patriotic emulation movements and social programs launched by the Fatherland Front to contribute to national development.


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UT Tyler Department of Art and Art History
Graduate Studies
- Studio Art MA/MFA Coordinated Degree
- Studio Art MA Degree
- Art History MA Degree
To begin your application process for graduate studies in art you should proceed with the following steps, in this order:
Download and fully read the application packet available.
- Studio Art MA/MFA Guidelines and Application Packet
- Art History MA Guidelines and Application Packet
- Visit the Graduate School website.
- Familiarize yourself with the policies, deadlines and requirements.
Studio Art Graduate Coordinator
James R. Pace, Professor
Phone: 903.566.7297
Art History Graduate Coordinator
Elizabeth Lisot, Assistant Professor
Phone: 903.566.7484